


Songbird

by superfluouskeys



Category: Sleeping Beauty (1959)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-06
Updated: 2018-07-18
Packaged: 2019-03-01 07:07:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 24,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13289649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superfluouskeys/pseuds/superfluouskeys
Summary: After nearly sixteen years of tireless searching, Maleficent stumbles upon the very target of her ire, alone and unguarded, singing in the forest. The events that follow are not precisely what she had planned.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Another transfer from ff.net, and another story I've let sit idle for too long. Making some edits as I go along, but nothing major, just fixing some phrasing I don't like. Original post date of the first chapter was April 16, 2014.

Maleficent had never devoted very much thought to music.

She had always been naturally gifted in most of her pursuits. She'd easily learned to sing a few folk tunes in her earliest youth, easily learned to play the occasional instrument she came across in her travels, and hadn't even the faintest doubt that she retained this knowledge, although she'd encountered little more than idle raven song in the past several decades.

But did she care? The folk tunes and the instruments meant nothing to her. They were diversions, ways to pass the time on those rare occasions when time seemed infinite and not of the essence. Maleficent valued knowledge and skill for their own sake, but apart from the satisfaction she gleaned from her easy expertise in the realm of music, she had always felt that she would be much the same without it.

That is to say, she had always felt thusly before this moment.

Not an instant after she had stopped dead in her tracks, Maleficent was overcome by a surge of irritation at herself. How imbecilic. A human girl singing in the forest was enough to surprise her? 

Few things had ever given Maleficent pause.  She had an uncommonly agile mind, and she seldom had any trouble attending to multiple matters at once.  Peasants sang frequently, though seldom quite as well or as sweetly, and simple-minded mortals were moved to song by something so commonplace as a pleasant afternoon. What was a lovely voice to Maleficent? She had a most pressing matter to attend to, and it had just recently come to her attention that the minions to whom she had previously assigned the task were wholly incompetent.

Loath though she was to admit weakness in any fashion, even in the confines of her own mind, Maleficent had never been particularly good at locating people. Magical proclivities showed themselves in curious ways, but this one was straightforward: she'd never had any interest. As far as she was concerned, people could come and go as they pleased, so long as they did not stand in her way.

When news of the missing princess had reached Maleficent, she'd at first been little more than mildly amused by such a feeble attempt to thwart her will.  But her idle mockery had soon turned to maddening frustration. Maleficent was among the most powerful fairies of her generation, and yet she could not locate a defenseless human child? She would not stand for it.

When at last Maleficent caught sight of the mysterious singer, her irritation with herself grew quite suddenly all-encompassing.  Truly, years of sleep deprivation must have addled her mind.  Golden hair, flawless skin, bright red lips--so clearly the daughter of the Queen who had bargained so dearly for her--of course no peasant, no mere mortal, could sing with such a voice.  Beyond sweetness, beyond warmth, beyond even virtuosity, that voice had been gifted to her by a fairy at her christening.

The Good Fairies had hidden the Princess Aurora here.

Right under Maleficent's nose.

Maleficent wrapped her fingers about her staff to steady herself, narrowly avoided clawing at her face for the sheer force of the rage that washed over her then.  Her vision blurred and her hands began to shake.

Maleficent had scoured the entire Earth and several realms besides looking for this girl. She had called upon every ally she had ever made, every creature she could will to do her bidding without any chance of beginning a nasty rumour that she was experiencing any difficulty with her task.  She had sent her idiot minions into the surrounding towns and forests every few years, but she had never personally searched them, because she had honestly believed that the three Good Fairies who served as the King's counselors, simple though they might be, were not quite stupid or reckless enough to hide such a precious commodity in plain sight.

Clearly, she had done something she'd believed impossible: she had overestimated their competence.

Maleficent's knuckles whitened around her staff, and she readied herself to charge into the clearing where the princess wandered. She would drag the girl back to wherever the fairies were keeping her and eviscerate her in front of them. She would send the remains to the King and Queen in a box with a ribbon.  _Good game!_  she would say.  _I'll bet you thought for a moment that you stood a chance against me! Well. Here's your precious_ —

The princess's singing was broken off by a musical sigh. She collapsed gracefully into the grass and reached out with a delicate hand to stroke the head of a rabbit at her side. It did not run or shy away. Indeed, it moved nearer to her when she spoke. "Have you ever been outside this little clearing?" she wondered.

Something in Maleficent's chest twisted ever so slightly, and she frowned instinctively in response. There was no way the girl could have sensed her presence. No. She was speaking to the rabbit. Of course.

Aurora swung her legs around to sit properly upon the riverbank, and she dipped her bare foot into the water. "It's all right," she told the rabbit. "Neither have I, and yet..." Another sigh. Wistful. _Beautiful_. "I can't help but wonder if the rest of the world is as dangerous as my aunties tell me."

So. The Good Fairies kept her in this minuscule corner of the woods and told her the rest of the world was dangerous. Their plan grew more idiotic by the minute. If Maleficent's mother had tried to feed that nonsense to her or her sisters when they were teenagers, she'd have had three runaways on her hands before nightfall.

"I know they only mean to protect me," she continued. Her melodious voice grew heavy with melancholy, and Maleficent's frown deepened. "But they can't very well do that forever, can they? Why, in a few months' time I'll be sixteen years old! They're going to expect me to act like a grown-up, take on more responsibilities... But will they still insist that I don't speak to anyone then? How am I ever to grow up if I've never even met another person? How am I ever to..."

Another sigh. A sad, self-deprecating little laugh. "Can't even talk to you anymore without hearing Aunt Flora's voice in my head. 'Don't you have better things to worry about than falling in love?'"

Aurora withdrew her feet from the stream, stood, and continued her walk. Her small band of animal companions scurried after her, hanging on her every word, enchanted by her fairy's magic. Not a few steps away, Maleficent stood immobile in the shadows, no less transfixed.

"But you know something?" Aurora's voice suddenly took on a lighter quality, almost playful, but with an underlying spark that rendered it less childish, less flippant. "I don't think there's anything more important than love," she told the forest.

So young. So naive. She said this with a kind of glowing, fiery certainty. There was nothing this poor, simple child believed in more strongly than the power of  _love_. Maleficent scoffed.

Aurora stopped walking. "Hello? Is somebody there?"

Maleficent's fight-or-flight response had always erred rather decidedly on the side of fighting.  That a part of her, however small, felt in any way compelled to turn back immediately, to sequester herself as far away from this situation as possible until she could work out why exactly she'd spent the past ten minutes quietly listening in on an idiot juvenile's ramblings on the matter of love when she ought to be ripping her to pieces, was unthinkable.  Maleficent would sooner die than live with the knowledge that she had fled from such a creature.

"High praise for something so volatile, so fleeting," said Maleficent instead, quietly. She did not move from her spot, nor did she allow her voice to sound precisely where it was.  The inadmissibility of panic incited in her an eerie calm, an icy clarity.  She had found the princess at long last.  Her prey was in her sights, and Maleficent would savour her victory, after all.

Aurora did not disappoint. She turned in frantic circles like a frightened doe, golden hair whipping violently over her shoulders, bright violet-blue eyes darting wildly between the trees, looking for any sign of something amiss. "Something so volatile? How do you mean—?"

But as quickly as she had been thrown into a frenzy, Aurora stopped and her lovely features contorted into a frown that was far more melancholy than threatening. "Nevermind. I'm sorry. I'm not supposed to speak to strangers." She turned her back to Maleficent and made to leave the clearing.

Maleficent was seized by the bizarre desire to continue the conversation, without revealing herself and without capturing and killing the princess. Why in Hell's name would she want to do that? Just for a bit of fun? Hadn't this gone on long enough? "How shall you ever meet anyone new, if you never speak to a stranger?"

Aurora stopped. She stood still and silent for a moment before she responded, quietly. "I imagine the idea is that I can't."

"Why do you suppose that is?"

"Well, I..." Aurora sighed. "I don't know."

The melancholy had returned to her voice ten times over. Though Maleficent knew the sound of it was only a trick of simple fairy magic, this knowledge did nothing to silence the effect of the voice upon her heart. Aurora was unhappy, and it made Maleficent feel sad to hear her sadness. This, like most emotions, quickly turned into vague irritation, and again, Maleficent frowned at nothing.

"You'll have a difficult time chasing your dreams of love if you continue to live in a world of strangers," said Maleficent coolly.

Aurora said nothing for a moment, and then her shoulders convulsed slightly. After another long silence, she let out a small, pathetic sob. Maleficent's lip curled instinctively in response to the sound.

"Please," said Aurora tremulously. "I know that already. You don't have to be so unkind."

"Run home to your beloved caretakers, then," Maleficent sneered. "Hide your head in your dreams while you may."

Aurora turned around abruptly. Tears sparkled in her searching eyes and her rose-red lips trembled ever so slightly. She focused her attention on a spot not far away from where Maleficent stood. Her near-accuracy was more unnerving than it should have been. Maleficent must simply have grown too irritated to continue throwing her voice about.

"I am sorry that the world has been cruel to you," she said.

Maleficent wasn't certain what she had expected, but she had not anticipated this. "I beg your pardon?"

"Perhaps you've never known the kind of love I know," she continued. "I'm sorry for that. But you see..." A small smile began to tug at her lips, almost imperceptible, but just as warm and as genuine as the inflection it engendered in her voice. "You are the first person I've ever spoken to. Besides my aunts, of course. And for that, I shall always love you just a little bit, whoever you are. Even if you weren't very nice to me."

She turned to leave again, and Maleficent was far too stunned to stop her. Before her golden curls disappeared amongst the trees, Aurora stopped and turned around once more.

"I suppose that means I've proven you all wrong, doesn't it?" she wondered lightly.

Not an instant later, she was well and truly gone.

Maleficent could follow her. She could enact her plan this very evening and be done with the matter. She could get a full night of rest for the first time in nearly two decades, and she could leave this land for a time, find some other place to cause trouble, somewhere the trouble didn't bite back in such infuriating ways.

This brief interaction had left Maleficent feeling perplexed.  Uncertain.  She had...minimal experience with the sensation, and she found that it did not suit her at all.  Generally her motives clearly aligned, and potential courses of action laid themselves out clearly in her mind's eye, all means by which to achieve a single desired outcome.  Each had pros and cons to be accommodated, but they certainly never contradicted one another.

Maleficent closed her eyes, inhaled slowly.  She wouldn't put an end to the princess tonight.  Not without a clear plan.  She wouldn't throw caution to the wind simply because she'd been caught off her guard.  She knew where the girl was now, and with a few months to spare.  So long as Maleficent did not allow her ill temper to get the better of her, she had an abundance of time to concoct a new death sentence, even more horrific and poetic than the first.

Somewhere in the distance, Aurora began to sing again. Impossibly, her song was warmer and sweeter than it had been the first time Maleficent had heard it.

_Nonsense!  A trick of fairy's magic!_

Maleficent scowled and departed the forest in a burst of green flame. She could not endure this torment a moment longer.


	2. Chapter 2

Briar Rose reached the little cottage she called home in a sort of daze. She sang and hummed intermittently, depending upon whether her mouth was occupied with a handful of the berries her aunts had sent her out to pick. They'd chide her for eating them, but there was no real harm in it. There were always plenty of berries to be found in these woods, and Briar Rose seldom lost her appetite.

Rose rather wished she would stop growing soon. She was becoming awfully tall in comparison to her aunts, and though she'd of course never set eyes upon another person (except through a crack in her window upstairs) she didn't particularly relish the thought of towering over every single person she met, once she was allowed to meet new people.

Well, provided she ever was.

"Oh, there you are, Rosie!"

Aunt Fauna was hunched awkwardly over a washboard and bucket, scrubbing away at one of her green dresses. None of them had many clothes, for they were all dreadfully inept at sewing. They were dreadfully inept at all of the housework, really, which was why Rose did the better part of it, but for some reason, none of them would allow Rose to even so much as look at a needle and thread. _You might hurt yourself_ , each of them maintained, with a curious glint of something Rose didn't recognize in their eyes.

Briar Rose was inclined to argue that she might far more easily hurt herself cooking or mending the roof or climbing trees in the forest, but she didn't particularly want to be forbidden from any of those things, so she very quickly learned to hold her tongue on the matter.

"Hello, Auntie," Rose replied, but her voice was still dreamy, for her mind was still elsewhere. "Would you like any help?"

"Oh, don't you worry about me, Rosie," Fauna chuckled. "You just hurry on inside before Flora gets all upset."

"Upset?" This was almost—but not quite—enough to bring Rose back to the present moment. "Have I been gone a long time?"

"Well, it is nearly sunset, dear," said Fauna. "You know Flora doesn't...that is,  _we_  don't like you to be alone so close to nightfall."

Rose looked up through the trees to the deep blue sky, and a hazy little smile began to tug at her lips. She hadn't even noticed how long she'd wandered about. She'd been wondering about so many things...

"Of course, Auntie," she said to the sky. "I'm sorry I was late."

"Never you mind, dearie," said Fauna, the warmth of her smile clear in her voice. "Inside with you."

Rose entered the cottage cradling her basket in her arms, in the midst of a lovely waltz melody she'd been playing around with.

"Well! Look who decided to make her way home!"

"I'm awfully sorry, Aunt Flora!" said Rose. She finished her dance with a twirl, set the basket on the kitchen counter, and gave her aunt a hug and a kiss on the cheek. "I lost track of the time, that's all."

"Lost track of the time!" Flora echoed, but the bite had already left her tone. "Lost track of the time while some of us were counting the minutes until sunset, worried sick!"

Rose giggled. Her jovial mood would not be so easily dampened. "Worried sick? I made it home long before sunset, Auntie! No need to worry."

Slowly and seamlessly, Rose set about taking over each of Flora's rapidly failing dinner projects. She did wonder how her aunts never seemed to improve at cooking or cleaning or gardening in the slightest, no matter how they tried, but it didn't really matter. She didn't mind doing the work. She loved her aunts dearly, and she hadn't any idea how they'd gotten by before she'd been old enough to help out. She was happy to make their lives easier. When she'd taken care of the housework, they relaxed, and when they relaxed, they were really delightful, all three of them.

"Flora, I swear, if you've hidden my favourite slippers again—" Aunt Merryweather's voice preceded her down the stairs.

"Why in Heaven's name would I hide your slippers?" Flora wondered with a long-suffering sigh.

"You don't want me to have any joy in my life, that's why!" Merryweather responded.

"Don't want you to—Merryweather, that is ridiculous! Did you check—"

"Did I check!" Merryweather took the last few steps with a leap, that she might accost her eldest sister more immediately. "I've checked everywhere!" she gesticulated wildly. "Perhaps you'd like to tell me what clever place I haven't checked, hmm?"

Rose tuned them out for a few moments while she set the table and began humming to herself again. Perhaps someday she'd be allowed to meet someone. And then perhaps she could invite that someone over for dinner. How lovely it would be to set another place at the table, right next to the place where Rose sat, so that she might ask her new friend all sorts of questions, and be the first to hear the answers!

"—check under your own bed, you ninny?"

"Of  _course_  I ch—oooh!"

Rose's pleasant turn of thought was interrupted by Merryweather's stormy exit, complete with slamming door.

"Honestly. Her slippers are blue, and they reek of her feet! What could I possibly want with those hideous things?"

"I haven't any idea, Auntie," Rose replied absently. As she arranged the food on the first plate, she imagined, just for a moment, that she was making a plate for the owner of the mysterious voice, who'd spoken to her in the woods today.

As Flora continued her nightly rant on the virtues of attractive footwear, Rose dared to imagine what the owner of that voice might look like. She thought she'd caught a glimpse of a shadowy figure amongst the trees, but she couldn't tell anything in particular. Perhaps she'd seen a glow...the glow of eyes? But eyes didn't glow. Then again, if those were the stranger's eyes, she must be very tall, indeed. Perhaps Rose needn't feel so self-conscious about towering over everyone she met. Perhaps she was not uncommonly tall, but her aunts were uncommonly small! How odd that would be!

Rose remained distracted all throughout dinner. Flora and Merryweather hadn't nearly finished bickering about the proper colour of slippers, and Rose felt rather badly for leaving Aunt Fauna with nothing to do but sigh sadly and attempt in vain to make peace between them, but she could not stop herself from wondering what a dinner conversation with her mysterious stranger might be like.

The stranger wasn't very nice to her. Perhaps the stranger also had a sister with whom she liked to bicker about trivial matters. Or perhaps the stranger was a bit crueler, and often bickered about less trivial matters, like whether a young woman in the woods might ever be allowed to make a friend.

"Rose? Are you all right?" Merryweather patted Rose's hand, and Rose jumped in surprise.

"Hm? Yes. Yes, of course. A bit tired, that's all." Of course that wasn't even nearly all. Rose felt her stomach twist uncomfortably as she remembered the way her conversation with the mysterious voice had gone, the way she'd been a bit afraid to challenge the stranger, the way she'd known the stranger was right, however cruel.

"Maybe you'd better get ready for bed, Rosie," said Merryweather. "Don't you worry about the dishes; we'll manage."

Rose nodded silently and went upstairs to her room. She washed her face and changed into her nightgown, and just as she had settled into her bed, there came a knock upon her door.

"Come in," said Rose.

Her aunts entered and surrounded her bed, and they all set about tucking the blankets snugly about her shoulders.

"Good night, my little princess," said Flora, and kissed Rose's forehead.

"Good night, Aunt Flora."

"Good night, Rosie," said Fauna, and kissed Rose's right cheek.

"Good night, Aunt Fauna."

"Good night, sweet princess," said Merryweather, and kissed Rose's left cheek.

"Good night, Aunt Merryweather."

Each of them reached out to smoothe Rose's hair, and then with a few final good nights, they left her to sleep.

Rose turned onto her side and gazed out her little window into the night sky. She'd always liked her room up in the attic. She liked that she could see the sky above the trees through her window, and she liked that she was closer to the clouds. It felt somehow like a kind of quiet freedom.

Rose knew she was very lucky to be so thoroughly surrounded by love. She had never really thought about it very much until she'd spoken to the stranger today. In the stranger's words, she'd heard an utter dearth of it. The stranger seemed somehow to scoff at love, to challenge its very existence. And when Rose had realized that, she'd realized that this figureless voice had no aunties waiting for her to come home, waiting to eat dinner with her and fuss over her and tuck her in and kiss her goodnight.

Perhaps she had been thoughtless just as the stranger's ceaseless questions suggested, dreaming of finding a new love, full of excitement, when she already had a life which, while not quite perfect, certainly overflowed with love. Perhaps the stranger's cruel words had been not a challenge, but an admonishment.

Perhaps Briar Rose was a selfish fool for wanting anything more than this.


	3. Chapter 3

It could be argued that Maleficent's state of neutrality was the common man's state of agitation. She'd been an anxious child, and the trials she had faced throughout her youth had twisted her anxiety into a very focused and productive sort of paranoia. She feared nothing, but only because she anticipated nearly everything.

Given her tempestuous nature and formidable power, Maleficent considered herself to be exceedingly reasonable. So long as the inferior beings she permitted to run amok at her feet regarded her with the requisite fearful deference, she was contented not to plague their lives with misery.

However, if there was one thing Maleficent would not abide, it was foolhardy insolence.

It defied the laws of natural selection, really. A human was a fragile and fleeting creature, and any human with a working survival instinct ought to realize that he was no match for his fairy neighbour. Should he see fit to make some imbecilic statement of power by not inviting her to a politically charged social event, for example, he ought to be stricken back down into his proper place, before he brought unspeakable harm upon more than merely himself.

And should his offspring see fit to blithely toss her hair in the general direction of what Maleficent well knew to be a most foreboding shadow among the trees, well, then, that foolish little human ought to be made fully aware of the absolute idiocy of her own demeanour before the intended vengeance upon her father could be enacted.

Maleficent had never experienced betrayal, for she had never trusted anyone. The dark fae were not well-known for honouring familial ties; even Maleficent's own mother and sisters had been her enemies in the battle for survival. She'd kept a handful of friends over the course of her life, but she'd lost touch with all of them over the past two decades, so consumed was she with the search for the human princess. She called them friends, for she had enjoyed their company from time to time, but she did not trust them, and she assumed they were wise enough not to trust her. Everyone in Maleficent's world looked out for her own interests above all else.

The human world operated differently. People trusted one another—frightfully easily, as far as Maleficent was concerned—and the sting of betrayal was considered a devastating blow. Humans learned to be wary not by virtue of simple awareness of the world, but through the experience of betrayal.

Therefore, Maleficent reasoned, this must be how she dealt with the Princess Aurora.

With the luxury of distance from the strangeness of their meeting, this course of action had presented itself to Maleficent rather quickly.  After she'd parted ways with the princess, she'd returned to her home in the Forbidden Mountains in a state of agitation, which was arguably the common man's frenzied rage. Her raven companion, Diablo, had avoided her until she'd calmed herself and settled upon her throne to plot her next move, and had gladly lit upon her shoulder moments later when the idea of betrayal had occurred to her.

"How do you suppose one engenders trust, pet?" she wondered idly. Diablo's unhelpful response was to nudge her hand. Her lip curled into a sneer, but she gave his head an affectionate pat nonetheless. "Well, it seems you trust me well enough not to wring your neck. Perhaps a pat on her feathered head will be quite enough."

And the more Maleficent considered this offhand statement, the more she realized it might be perfectly accurate. Maleficent wasn't unaware of social graces—she merely elected not to make use of them in her day to day affairs—and she wasn't without a certain variety of charm. Despite these truths, Maleficent had made no effort whatsoever to be pleasant or charming, and the princess had responded, overall, positively to her.

The Good Fairies didn't allow Aurora to speak to anyone. Had Maleficent only those three blundering fools for company, she would go utterly mad within the hour. Despite her frightfully accommodating disposition, Aurora clearly longed desperately for the company she was denied. As far as Maleficent was concerned, she could be far less interesting and remain infinitely preferable to Mistresses Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather.

Why, in all likelihood, she could make the girl believe she was her friend without any effort whatsoever, aside from her mere presence and the decidedly admirable quality of not being one of her caretakers.

Maleficent did not sleep that night. She sat atop her throne, practically trembling with anticipation, until the moon disappeared from the sky, and the sun rose and then began to set in the afternoon. Then, without another word to Diablo or the various creatures who scuttled about at her feet asking for directions, Maleficent disappeared in a burst of green flame and reappeared in the part of the forest where she'd first discovered the hidden princess.

Even before she had fully materialized, Maleficent could hear the princess's lovely voice raised in song, fuller and sweeter and more virtuosic than it had been the day before. What a useless magical gift.

Useless, yet undeniably captivating.

Maleficent quickly located the flash of sunshine gold which was Aurora's hair amid the darker colours of the forest. Today, Aurora had filled her basket with flowers, but at the moment, her basket served as her dance partner. She swung it about—spilling the occasional bloom as she went—in a graceful and surprisingly precise waltz. Her bare feet moved with polished certainty, as though she'd been trained all her life, and yet Maleficent could not imagine that those three clumsy fools possessed enough natural grace to teach her thusly, even if they tried.

Most likely Aurora's natural grace was another trick of fairy magic. Maleficent narrowly avoided scoffing aloud, for she did not wish to alert the princess to her presence just yet. A colossal waste of magical power was this pretty maid in peasant's clothes.

"I do wonder what it must be like to dance with another person," said Aurora.

Maleficent did not startle this time. She knew Aurora was speaking to the animals who gathered in the trees around her. They chattered back to her, each in their unique language, and Maleficent wondered if Aurora understood them, or if she merely pretended to. Perhaps she was even more desperate for companionship than Maleficent realized.

"I've only seen pictures, you know." She fell gracefully down into the grass and leaned her head against the tree where her animal companions perched. They accommodated her by scurrying down to sit at her side. "A handsome young man bows and offers his hand to a lady in a long, flowing ballgown—" she smoothed the plain and somewhat tattered skirt of her own frock "—and she twirls about the room in his arms..."

Aurora sighed and closed her eyes.

"But of course I don't even know if I'm doing the steps properly. I imagine I'd be frightfully clumsy, and no one would wish to dance with me at all."

Though Maleficent was prepared for the melancholy in Aurora's voice, it affected her own heart all the same. Loathsome fairy trickery. Useless. "Gentlemen seldom choose their partners based upon skill," said Maleficent, and she took a moment to relish the way Aurora jumped to her feet in surprise. "At least," she continued smugly, "not secondary to aesthetic appeal."

"You frightened me." Aurora steadied herself and swallowed audibly.

"You have the good fortune to be in possession of both," Maleficent continued.

"Both?" Aurora echoed with a small frown.

"I expect you'd have no trouble securing a dance partner, were you permitted to attend an event which necessitated dancing."

Aurora stopped in her tracks and turned around. She was almost directly facing Maleficent now. "You're being much nicer than you were yesterday," she remarked cautiously.

Maleficent felt herself smiling, though she wasn't entirely certain why. She'd known her plan would go off without a hitch; else she wouldn't have put it into action so quickly. Why smile? "Perhaps my objective observation is simply more to your liking today than it was yesterday."

Aurora's frown deepened. "I shouldn't talk to you anymore."

Maleficent narrowly suppressed a chuckle. "Whyever not?"

"I told you already," the girl replied as she turned to retrieve her basket of flowers. "I'm not allowed to speak to strangers."

"Am I still a stranger if we've already met?"

Aurora paused, one hand upon her basket. "Well..." She bit her lip as she considered this. "I suppose not," she decided at last, and instantly, her demeanour cheered significantly. "Does that mean I may ask your name? Or what you look like? I have been wondering quite a bit--I mean...I hope you don't think me odd, but I did mention I've never met anyone before, and..."

Maleficent could no longer contain her amusement. She let out a soft chuckle, and as soon as the sound reached Aurora's ears, she trailed off and her expression fell.

"I'm sorry," she said.

This would be almost too easy. "Are you certain you possess the constitution, little princess?" Maleficent wondered lightly. "Grown men have quivered in terror at the mere mention of my name, dropped to their knees and begged for mercy at the sight of me."

At the very least, this caught Aurora's attention, but she did not seem wholly convinced. "Truly?" she asked quietly. Rather quickly, though, she added, "But how shall I know unless I see you for myself?"

Maleficent tilted her head studiously for a moment while she considered the curious creature who had grown from the infant she had cursed. For an instant, she had very nearly forgotten that they were one and the same. "A fair point," she conceded, and emerged from the protective cover of the trees at last.

The look that dawned upon Aurora's face held not even the slightest trace of fear or revulsion, and Maleficent found this decidedly unnerving. Wonder.  Curiosity.  And ostensibly no negative emotions of any sort.

Was she capable of them? Had she been so thoroughly sheltered that she hadn't the most basic good sense, the sheer survival instinct to be wary of someone who looked the way Maleficent did—equal parts naturally and deliberately imposing?

"You're very tall."

Maleficent's brow twitched. "I beg your pardon?"

Aurora tilted her head slightly. "It's a bit of a relief. I was beginning to worry that I might tower over everyone I ever met."

"Presuming you were permitted to meet anyone."

Aurora averted her eyes. "Well. Yes."

Maleficent seldom thought very much about being tall, or about any specific aspect of her physical appearance. It served her well in life to be tall. Now that she thought about it, she'd never met anyone taller, and she doubted she'd like it very much if she did. "I assure you I've led a fulfilling life under just such a circumstance," she responded with a subtle smirk.

"Oh!" Aurora looked up, vibrant violet-blue eyes shining with the beginnings of dismay. "I'm terribly sorry, really. I didn't mean anything by it."

This only served to further Maleficent's amusement. "Is there something you find particularly desirable about not being taller than someone?"

Some unreadable emotion flashed across the girl's eyes, and inexplicably, she gave Maleficent a quick, nervous once-over. "It's silly."

"I'm certain I concur," Maleficent replied lightly. "However, I should like to hear your line of reasoning, nonetheless."

Aurora began to fidget with her dress. "Oh, you know...in the books my aunties have, there's always a..." she averted her eyes once more, and a small smile graced her lovely features, "well, a handsome prince, or a knight, or the like. And in the pictures, he always towers over the lady, his love, and I feared..."

Maleficent bit the inside of her mouth. "You feared all of the handsome princes and knights of the world were the height of your...aunts?"

"Something like that..."

Suddenly, Aurora set her eyes upon Maleficent once more, and Maleficent found to her immense distaste that the full force of those lovely eyes upon her was just as much a shock to her heart as was the uselessly lovely sound of her singing voice. Maleficent frowned instinctively.

"What do you know about my aunts?" Aurora wondered suddenly. "What do you know about me, for that matter?"

Maleficent took a moment to consider her response. "More than the extent of our interaction might suggest," she said at last.

Aurora's brow furrowed slightly. "That's rather unfair, don't you think?"

This proved to be the end of Maleficent's determination not to show her amusement. She had a hearty, chuckle. "If you expect life to be fair, little princess, you shall be sorely disappointed."

Aurora considered this for a moment. Her expression remained decidedly concerned. "Why do you call me 'little princess?'"

Maleficent raised one eyebrow. "Why wouldn't I?"

"That's what my aunties call me." Aurora began to back away. "Have you been spying on us?"

There was something strange about Aurora's reaction. It would make sense for her to be concerned that Maleficent might be aware that she was a princess in disguise, but her wording didn't quite match with that. "I haven't," she replied slowly. "I merely thought the sobriquet suited you. What would you have me call you, instead?"

Wide, searching violet-blue eyes studied her intently for several long seconds before Aurora replied, "You could call me by my name."

Maleficent met her gaze steadily, but against her will, she felt a small smile tugging at the corners of her lips. "And what might that be, milady?"

Aurora's rose red lips parted, and just as she inhaled to speak, three unbearably familiar voices rang out through the trees, unwittingly giving Maleficent the answer to more than just the question at hand.

"Rose!"

"Briar Rose!"

"Rosie, dear!"

Aurora jumped and glanced over her shoulder in the direction of the sound. "I'd better go," she said as she collected her basket of flowers. As she scurried about the clearing, it came to Maleficent's attention once again that her feet were bare.

Just before she disappeared into the trees, Aurora stopped and whirled around to face Maleficent, who had not moved.

"Will I see you again?" she asked.

The undeniable lilt of hopefulness engendered a surprising and most unwelcome tightness in Maleficent's throat, and she endeavoured to make her expression even more severe to compensate. "Perhaps," she replied, and lifted her chin slightly.

Aurora's lovely face broke out into the brightest smile Maleficent had ever seen, and one of very few smiles which had ever been directed at her. The sensation was overall something like severe nausea.

Aurora opened her mouth once more to say something, but Maleficent did not wait to hear it. She threw her arms above her head and disappeared in a burst of green fire. Even after she'd rematerialized in the foyer of her home, although she knew it was utterly impossible to hear anything in the distant forest from the mountains, Maleficent still imagined she could hear someone singing.

"Useless," she muttered to no one in particular.


	4. Chapter 4

Briar Rose despised reading.

It occurred to her that, if asked—if anyone ever thought to ask, and if there were anyone to think of such a thing—she would say that she didn't despise anything. But she would be wholly incorrect. She despised reading. She despised books and paper and words and letters and whatever cruel, twisted soul had chosen to concoct the written language.

Of course, she never thought to despise reading when it had no direct impact upon her daily life. It was only in this moment, or more precisely, this interminable span of hours, when she would sooner do absolutely anything else, but must sit here and struggle to form thoughts from incoherent scribbles, that Briar Rose could really focus her energies on the pure and formidable hatred of reading.

"Rose, dear."

Rose responded with a dramatic sigh. She'd stopped even pretending to stare at the page, and Fauna had finally taken notice.

She supposed she shouldn't be too sore. She'd been awarded several minutes of respite because Fauna was engaged in her own daunting task—one which fascinated Rose purely because she was not allowed to partake in it: knitting.

"I don't suppose you want to switch?"

"Needles are sharp, Rosie. Wouldn't want you to prick your finger."

Rose rested her head in her hand with another heavy sigh. "So I'll never learn to sew or knit or even crochet?"

Fauna looked up, befuddled. "I think one crochets with a little hook, dearie."

"That wasn't my point at all, Auntie."

Fauna smiled at her, almost sadly, and went back to fumbling with her knitting needles. "Wait until you're older."

"Older!" Rose cried, exasperated. "I'll be sixteen soon. What then?"

Fauna stopped pretending to knit, but her focus remained decidedly downward. "Well. Then I imagine you can learn to knit, if you'd like."

"Then," Rose countered, "you're going to expect me to be a grown-up woman and I'll never have even spoken to another person!"

"Rose!" Fauna looked up, stunned and a little hurt, and Rose instantly felt very guilty. "We're doing our best to protect you!" she continued, her voice tremulous. "The world—" she gestured wildly towards the window "—it's dangerous out there, Rose! There are people who..." Fauna frowned, swallowed audibly, and abruptly went back to knitting. "People who would mean you ill," she finished quietly.

 _Even if that's so_ , Rose wanted to argue,  _will those mythical evildoers just go away once I've turned sixteen?_

But she felt so profoundly guilty for lying and for starting an argument with her sweet and mild-mannered aunt that she bowed her head and said, "I'm sorry, Aunt Fauna. I know you only want to protect me. I'm only frustrated, that's all."

Fauna's smile returned just as quickly as it had gone. "You'll get better, dearie, if only you practice."

Now it was Rose's turn to frown in confusion. "Practice?"

"Reading, dearie. What else?"

Rose let out a groan and returned to glaring at the incomprehensible book before her. She'd had quite enough with this page. This page was dreadful and she loathed it. She would sooner die than read the words on this page. She flipped the page with an angry flourish only to be confronted by something she'd heretofore never experienced: a picture of a person she recognized.

"Auntie?"

"Yes, dearie?"

"Help me with a word or two?"

Fauna set down her knitting and hurried to Rose's side, but once she set eyes on the page, Rose sensed an immediate and drastic change in Fauna's demeanour. It was as though the entire room had grown darker.

Rose hesitated for an instant, scanned the page, and pointed to the longest word with a capital M.

Fauna swallowed audibly.

"Auntie?"

"Maleficent."

Rose turned to look at her aunt, hoping for more information, but she was greeted with the stoniest silence she'd ever experienced.

"What sort of a word is that?" she wondered.

Fauna turned away from her and walked slowly back to her favourite chair. "It's a name, Rosie. And I'll tell you something about Maleficent. Of course Flora and Merryweather and I can't protect you forever, Rosie, we know that, but  _she_..." Fauna turned back to face Rose, and Rose saw to her immense surprise that there were tears in Fauna's eyes. "She is just the sort of person I hope you never have to meet."

Later, Fauna would recount to her sisters with no small degree of confusion that on this blessed day, she had somehow convinced Briar Rose to really commit to learning to read.

Rose, for her part, spent the rest of the afternoon in stunned silence. There was no doubt in her mind that the woman on the page was the woman Rose had met twice now in the woods. And perhaps she had been unpleasant at first, but did that make her the sort of person Rose ought never to encounter? Were decent people always and without exception pleasant? How frustrating it was not to know! If only Rose had encountered even a handful of other people on whom she might base such an opinion!

Rose found it rather jarring to realize that if she'd had this conversation even a few days ago, she would have taken her beloved aunt's opinion as truth without so much as a few questions.

As it stood, however, Rose felt most inclined to protect her mysterious acquaintance from the doubts of her underinformed mind. What did Aunt Fauna know, anyway? When had she encountered this woman, this...Maleficent?

Had she?

 _More than the extent of our interaction might suggest_ , the Stranger had told her when asked how much she knew of Briar Rose.

But what was there to know, really? Rose led a simple existence. She helped her dear aunties with the housework, she sang to the animals in the forest, and sometimes when she couldn't talk her aunts out of it, she sat at the table and tried and failed to learn to read.

 _Maleficent_.

 _Fairy_  - there was another word she recognized.  _Magic_.  _Forbidden_.  _Mountain_. Words she knew, yes, but she could not string them together into anything that made any sense.

Rose blinked twice when another familiar word caught her eye:  _evil_.

Could Rose's only friend in the world be evil?

This was the question that kept Rose tossing and turning all night. She never slept well when she wasn't permitted a bit of time out of doors, which was to say, whenever she was forced to pretend to read all through the daylight hours. She could hear the three unique snores of her aunties from downstairs in the dead silence of the night, and the moonlight that illuminated her attic room seemed somehow harsh and frightening.

Good and evil weren't things of which Rose had any real concept. All her life, she'd known only good, and sometimes unpleasant, like a bodily injury or how much she hated to read. What she knew of evil was contained in story books, and all she really knew of those was what Aunt Fauna read to her. Evil people did cruel things. Snow White's mother sent a huntsman to kill her. Cinderella's stepmother and stepsisters put her in tattered clothes and made her their slave, took all the joy from her life. The witch Dame Gothel locked Rapunzel away in a tower all her life, and she'd never even met or spoken to another person until...

But wasn't it Dame Gothel, the captor, who was the evil in that story?

Rose thought of her beloved aunts, and she thought of what the word evil meant to her, and she almost laughed from the absurdity of the two concepts together.

Still, as she turned over onto her other side and gazed out her window at the full moon, Briar Rose found that, evil or not, she keenly missed her mysterious friend Maleficent.


	5. Chapter 5

The Princess Aurora didn't know who she was.

It was nothing short of bizarre. What was their plan? Hiding the girl in plain sight had been foolish enough, but this was an entirely new level of idiocy. Hide the girl from  _herself?_  To what end?

The princess would be sixteen in a matter of months. If she were hypothetically to survive her sixteenth birthday, she would return to the palace and reclaim her position as princess, and by extension, her identity and all that entailed. While Maleficent had minimal personal experience upon which to draw, she was given to understand that the life of a princess and the life of a peasant were starkly different, and that each would be woefully ill-equipped at best to handle the responsibilities of the other.

Did the Good Fairies expect Maleficent to prevail? That would be uncommonly reasonable of them. In that event, what a bizarre sixteen years they would have the girl lead as the summation of her lifetime.

No, more likely they believed their plan—whatever it might be—to be outlandishly brilliant. They would seclude the girl in plain sight, tell her nothing of herself or the life she was to lead, and then once Maleficent's curse was out of the way, everything would fall into place.

It sounded utterly absurd in Maleficent's mind, and yet, what else could those idiot fairies possibly think they were doing?

Maleficent had returned to the princess's favourite clearing in the woods the next afternoon full to the brim with questions only to find her woefully absent. She'd returned the next day and waited even a bit longer, but still no sign of the girl called Briar Rose.

On the third day, Maleficent was not only plagued by the desire for knowledge, but exceptionally irritated: first, that her desire for knowledge had not immediately been sated, second, that her only key to said knowledge likely knew next to nothing of any use, and third, that Maleficent rather keenly wished to speak with her, anyway.

The flood of relief that coursed through her system when she spotted a head of blonde curls amongst the trees only served to further Maleficent's profound irritation with the entire matter.

The blonde curls halted their aimless wandering, and the girl spoke to the empty woods before her. "I know you're there," she said, her voice tremulous.

Maleficent would not be fooled this time. For all she knew, the girl had been announcing this to the forest for an hour. For all she knew, the princess was addressing a rabbit.  _Do you, little princess?_  she thought derisively.

Aurora turned around slowly, carefully surveying her surroundings. "Don't be afraid," she offered encouragingly.

This proved too much. Maleficent chuckled quietly, and the noise attracted Aurora's attention. Aurora smiled.

"I am not afraid," said Maleficent.

Aurora tilted her head. "Then why do you hide in the shadows?"

Maleficent approached slowly. Aurora somehow caught even her soundless footsteps and her gaze focused directly upon Maleficent, though of course she was still concealed in the shadows of the trees. "If I may answer a question with another question," Maleficent began, "has it not yet occurred to you to be afraid of me?"

Aurora's playful smile fell. "It has," she confessed slowly.

Maleficent quirked one eyebrow. "But?"

"But..." Aurora averted her gaze and began tracing some pattern with her bare foot in the grass. "I thought about it for some time, and I decided that if there were stories or rumours about me, I should very much like for people who met me to..." she looked up, violet-blue eyes wide and sparking with determination "...well, to give me the benefit of the doubt, I suppose."

The line was equal parts comical and tragic, and Maleficent could not quite decide what her reaction to it was, or even what it ought to be. She took two measured steps forward and allowed the filtered sunlight to touch her face. "The benefit of the doubt," she echoed slowly, still entrenched in the absurdity of the legendary Lost Princess so woefully unaware of her fate.

It suddenly occurred to Maleficent why this scenario—which should rightly fill her with glee—was so unappealing to her: there was no sport in it.  In withholding the truth from the princess, the Good Fairies had left her defenseless in Maleficent's wake.  She hadn't enough information, or apparently even enough common sense even to be frightened, to be just the slightest bit wary of Maleficent!

 

Cursing an infant was one thing. It was a nothing—a symbol of her ne'er-repaid good deed to the kingdom. It was a good bit of magic she'd performed at a price, and one she had intended to revoke when her price was not paid.

But this girl who stood before her was not a nothing. Try as she might, now that Maleficent had spent nearly sixteen years practically obsessed with the idea of her, and of course, now that they had met, Maleficent could no longer write her off as utterly inconsequential. There was potential in her...potential to be far more than a concept, far better than easy prey.

"Then I suppose I ought to offer you the same courtesy," Maleficent said at last, almost lightly.

"I've made up for whatever you might know of me," said Aurora. "I read about you in a book."

Maleficent unsuccessfully swallowed a cough of mirthless laughter. "So much for the benefit of the doubt."

"Well..." Aurora began slowly, as though considering whether she ought to continue. "Whatever you think you know must not be entirely true, either, right?"

"Fair enough," Maleficent conceded, though she'd never much cared for feeling as though she'd lost the upper hand. "It's true I know not the essentials of your character, the secrets of your soul," she said. "But the scope of your world, Briar Rose," she drawled the name given to her by her three foolish guardians, "is incredibly finite. It's just as possible that without knowing you very well at all, I know more of you than you know of yourself."

Aurora's expressive face grew troubled, her good humour instantly ruined. To her immense vexation, Maleficent did not feel very pleased about having dampened Aurora's spirits.

"In many ways, you do seem like some ancient, mythical creature," said Aurora thoughtfully. "Beyond my understanding, dangerous...perhaps even cruel by...mortal standards." She studied Maleficent with wide, searching eyes. "It's hard for me to understand what you're trying to say when you talk like that. Do you want to frighten me?"

"Perhaps a little," Maleficent replied, and she, too, carefully considered her choice of words. "It's not precisely malicious; rather, it is my opinion that a bit of healthy trepidation would be a wise attribute in this cruel world we inhabit."

Aurora took a small, hesitant step forward. "The book I read called you evil," she breathed, a hushed whisper of a word.

Maleficent responded in kind, one small step forward, shoulders squared, eyes locked on Aurora's. "And?"

Aurora's breath hitched, but she did not break eye contact. "Are you?"

Maleficent quirked one eyebrow, her silent challenge. "That depends upon your definition."

"I..." Aurora's brow furrowed. "I suppose I'd thought an evil person would know it."

Maleficent almost laughed, rather bitterly, but kept her composure. "Naive little princess," she murmured, and shook her head. Aurora's gaze hardened, as much as so soft a thing could, but she had no retort. Maleficent continued. "Come now. Humour me. What makes a person evil, in your eyes?"

Aurora folded her arms, and averted her gaze as she contemplated this question. "All right. Have you ever hurt anyone? Intentionally, I mean."

"Yes."

Aurora frowned, and slowly began to pace the little clearing. "Have you ever...killed anyone?"

Half-consciously, Maleficent mirrored the folding of Aurora's arms, and she leaned almost casually against the nearest tree as she watched. "Yes."

Aurora's frown deepened. She paused a moment, pushed at a little tuft of grass with her toe. "Did you enjoy it?" she almost whispered.

 _Why, naturally_ , she'd wanted to respond, with aplomb, but instead, she found herself saying, "Sometimes." Which seemed somehow both more and less honest than she'd set out to be.

Aurora's head remained bowed, but Maleficent caught her daring a sidelong glance in the general direction of the tree where Maleficent had anchored herself. "Well...have you ever done anything kind?"

Maleficent felt her lip twitch. "Never. Not once in all my days."

Aurora looked up, the faintest hint of a smile on her lips. "I'm not sure whether you're joking," she said. "But I wonder if this is a question that's possible to answer...have you ever enjoyed doing something kind, not for any personal reason, just...because you helped someone else?"

Maleficent scoffed. "A bit self-congratulatory for my taste, little princess."

Now Aurora's smile had widened, and it was like sunshine: warm and beautiful and blinding. "Perhaps you're right."

It was Maleficent's turn to avert her gaze. She focused instead on the trees above their heads, mysteriously devoid of songbirds since she had arrived. She could still hear them off in the distance somewhere, but this part of the forest was eerily silent in her wake. "I shall tell you this truthfully, little princess," she said after a moment. "If indeed I have ever granted anyone a mercy, it was to leave well enough alone."

Silence reigned between them once more, and Maleficent very nearly flinched when she felt Aurora's hand on her arm. Instead, she glared down at it with enough vitriol that Aurora let go immediately, hand still hovering, eyes full of something that wasn't quite the fear Maleficent had hoped to engender.

"I'm sorry," said Aurora. "I didn't mean to upset you." She inclined her head, gave a little half of a smile, which was somehow even more charming than the one full of sunshine. "But I suppose asking someone if she's evil isn't the kindest topic of conversation."

Maleficent raised her chin, contemplated the treetops once more. "The kindest topic of conversation," she said stiffly, "is seldom the most valuable."

Aurora retreated to a far more acceptable distance, and found her own tree to lean upon. She played at casualness a bit better than Maleficent did, or perhaps she was merely a bit more straightforward than Maleficent was accustomed to. "I'm sure I can't imagine killing anyone," she said, quietly.

Maleficent contemplated her in silence. She felt a peculiar sensation somewhere near the pit of her stomach that she was finding most unsettling at this particular juncture—all the more so because she could not put a name to it.

"I'm not sure I can imagine even wanting someone to die," Aurora added, looking up at Maleficent with those wide, searching eyes, full of so many more questions than she asked aloud.

And again, Maleficent found that her desire was to respond both more and less honestly than she had originally...well.  Than she had ever, in her life, intended. "Perhaps, if you are fortunate," she said, "you never shall."


	6. Chapter 6

Things were different after that, as though some sort of natural order of the universe had been upset. Those words Maleficent had spoken to her— _the kindest topic of conversation is seldom the most valuable_ —had awakened in Briar Rose a ravenous curiosity that she had long since dulled in order to keep relative peace amongst her aunties.

The unfortunate result was that they began to fight.

"Well I would  _love_  to mend it for you, but unfortunately I am not permitted to sew!"

"You might prick your finger!" Merryweather insisted, waving a finger at her frantically, as if the danger of such a thing should be obvious to her. It was always the same, Rose realized now, the same words, the same gestures, every day of her life.

"So what?" Rose cried, throwing up her hands. "So I bleed a little and then I get better at sewing!"

"It's not that simple, Rose!"

Rose let out a groan of frustration and stormed outside.

"Rose, where are you going?" Flora looked up from her wilting flowers.

"Out," Rose snapped.

"Out?" Flora echoed, disbelieving. "But Rose, dear, it's nearly sunset."

"So  _what?"_  Rose turned on her, fists clenched at her sides.

"So, the forest is dangerous at night!"

Rose sighed, struggled to regain composure. "You know the animals of the forest don't fear me, auntie," she near-pleaded. "What  _exactly_  is so dangerous?"

Flora waved her hand vaguely. "People! People who would harm you!"

"Why?"

"Because they're evil!"

"Who is so evil," Rose shook her head incredulously, "to be lurking out in the woods waiting to kill me because I stayed out too late?"

Flora held out her hands, made a muted noise of exasperation and despair, shook her head helplessly. Rose very nearly mirrored the gesture.

"I don't understand!" she cried. "Why can't you tell me anything?"

"We're trying to protect you, Rose!" Flora cried miserably.

"By locking me away from the world my whole life?" Rose fired back. "By keeping me a prisoner with rules I don't even understand? I won't take it anymore, I won't!"

She stormed into the cover of the trees. Flora and Merryweather called after her, but they did not follow. Birds chattered as she passed, but she paid them no heed. She picked up her feet and ran, ran as far as she could before she started to pant from the effort, and then she fell into the grass with another great cry of frustration, and rolled around to stare up at the sky through the trees.

It was getting dark. The sounds of the forest weren't quite the ones Rose was used to, and everything seemed quieter, almost still. She didn't hear approaching footfalls, didn't register the sound as human, for how could she when she had never heard such a thing?

A man's face appeared above her. "Why, hello," he said pleasantly.

Rose very nearly screamed. She contained the impulse into a small noise of surprise, and scrambled away from him.

"I'm awfully sorry. I didn't mean to frighten you."

Rose stammered. She staggered onto shaking legs and continue to back away from him, hands held out in front of her as though she might defend herself.

"You aren't lost, are you?" the man wondered, not unkindly. "It's getting late. These woods can be dangerous at night."

Rose very nearly rolled her eyes at him, and her irritation momentarily overwhelmed her fear. "No," she said firmly. "I am not lost. Are you?"

The man's face was coming into focus in the strange light of dusk now. He was smiling. "Perhaps, a little," he confessed. "But, if you'll forgive me for saying so, I cannot help but feel I am also exactly where I want to be."

Rose narrowed her eyes. "Oh?" she managed, and continued her slow retreat. She steadied herself on the trunk of a tree and placed it between them.

"It isn't every day one comes upon such a lovely face among the trees," the man continued. "Though I do often imagine I hear someone singing. That wouldn't be you, would it?"

Rose peeked out from behind the tree cautiously. "Perhaps you're mad," she offered.

The man laughed. The sound sat wrong with her, raised the hairs on the back of her neck, but her curiosity would not be so easily abated. "Perhaps I am," he said, as though it were not a bad thing to be.

Rose edged around the trunk of the tree a bit further. "You're a man," she said, hesitantly. "I've never met a man before."

The man laughed again. "Haven't you a father?"

"My father died."

His smile fell at last. He was less frightening that way. "Oh," he said. "I'm sorry."

"You needn't be. I don't remember him."

The man suddenly grew awkward. "Oh."

Rose had made her way back around the trunk of the tree. "What are you doing in the woods?" she asked him.

"Oh," he shrugged, "I was just...getting a bit of air."

Rose waited, wondered if he would continue.

"Family troubles," he elaborated simply.

Rose averted her eyes. "I understand that," she said.

"I expect our family troubles are quite different," said the man, in that light, joking tone that set her nerves on edge. It was like he was laughing at her, like she was a joke to him. She frowned instinctively, and he hedged. "I'm sorry," he said, holding up his hands as though in defense. "I didn't mean it as an insult."

Rose folded her arms. "Then what did you mean?" she pressed. She could tolerate talking in circles from ancient mystical beings who were fascinating enough to try to figure out, but as far as she could tell, this man had no reason to act superior to her.

The man held out his hands in that same vague, reaching gesture her aunts had offered her earlier. "I...just mean...you probably aren't betrothed to a stranger, that's all."

"Betrothed?" Rose echoed.

"Engaged. To be married."

Rose felt her fists clench in irritation. "Yes,  _thank you,_  only it seems a bit formal, doesn't it? I've never heard of anyone being betrothed to strangers other than..." she waved her hand vaguely, "I don't know, nobles or princes or kings or what have you."

The man ducked his head, shrugged amiably. Rose raised her eyebrows. "Oh," she said.  _So that's why you think you're better than me_ , she did not say. "So which is it, then?" she wondered, daring a step forward. "A lord? A duke?" She leaned in. "A prince?"

He captured her hands in his, and she skittered backward, feeling shocked and more than a little betrayed. He had that smug smile about him again, and he didn't let go when she pulled. Instead, her drew her in, as though he meant to lead her in a dance.

"Let's not worry about such matters for a few moments," he murmured, low, and too close, and Rose tried to distance herself again, but he did not let go, and though she felt fear and disquiet crashing over her in waves, her curiosity would not be abated. "We both came here to get a bit of fresh air, did we not?"

"I...suppose so," Rose managed, and gradually, allowed herself to be drawn in.

His hand found her waist, and he swayed to some imagined beat, and then he showed her the steps she'd only ever played at, one-two-three, one-two-three, and then they began to dance.

And Rose felt herself relax, just a little. Surely there could be no danger here. This was no ancient mystical being talking in circles, just a high-born man who thought a bit too highly of himself, and he was teaching her to dance, and she was enjoying herself, and then she could go back home and apologize to her aunties, and she could go back to the way things were before Maleficent had awakened such aching curiosity inside her.

The man spun her around, and she laughed and curtseyed low. It was well and truly getting dark now, and she felt she'd had more than enough adventure for one evening. "Well," she said. "I'd better be going."

But he was catching at her hands again, and that fear she'd set aside earlier came bubbling back to the surface. "Wait! When can I see you again?"

"Oh..." This gave Rose pause. She imagined if she were more skilled with people, she might be able to think of something pleasant to say. As she was not, what she said was, "Well, never, probably."

"Never?"

"I'm not even supposed to...and you're not..." He was clutching onto her hands, too tightly now, and she suddenly felt very guilty for yelling at her aunties, who were only trying to protect her. "Well," she hedged, finally freeing her hands from his grasp. "Maybe someday."

"When?" the man advanced, and Rose prepared to run.

"Maybe...tomorrow," she called over her shoulder. "The cottage in the glen!" she offered, impulsively. And then she ran, as hard and as fast as she could, until she fell on hands and knees in front of the door of the very cottage she'd indicated.

The door swung open and Rose's aunts were upon her in an instant, all crying  _Rose_ , and  _we were so worried_ , and  _are you all right?_

"I'm so sorry," she breathed. She hardly realized there were tears streaming down her cheeks. "I'm so sorry, aunties, really, I am..."

"Shh, all is forgiven, Rosie!"

"Don't you worry, Rose, we're sorry, too—"

"We never wanted to keep this from you forever—"

"It's just that it seems such an awful lot to handle—"

"And we didn't want you to be unhappy, Rosie, but..."

"Hush, hush, just come inside before you catch a chill."

Rose scrubbed at her face with her sleeve and followed where they led. Inside, she could see the flicker of candles illuminating a beautiful cake, and a dress fit for a queen. "Oh!" Rose exclaimed.

"Surprise, surprise!" her aunties ushered her forward.

"Happy early birthday, Rose!" said Merryweather. "We wanted to apologize for keeping so much from you."

"Yes," Flora agreed, more gravely. "It is time you knew."

"Knew?" Rose turned around to face them.

Flora hesitated then, and exchanged glances with her sisters before she nodded firmly, as though to herself. "Rose, we...we've kept many secrets from you, maintained many falsehoods, to keep you safe. I confess I'm not sure where to begin."

Rose steadied herself on the table, the cake and the dress all but entirely forgotten. "Begin at the beginning," she said.

Flora inhaled, hesitated, then turned searching eyes upon her sisters. Merryweather averted her eyes, twisted her hands in her dress. Fauna, though her lip trembled and her eyes grew watery, nodded, and she stepped forward.

"The king and queen of this land are well-loved by their people," Fauna began. "But there is only one who can carry on their legacy."

"The Lost Princess?" Rose wondered, befuddled. She'd heard this story once, long ago, but the details had seemed vague and fuzzy, the characters not as exciting as Fauna's usually were.

Fauna nodded, patted Rose's hands. "The king and queen longed for a child for many years. When at last a daughter was born, the whole kingdom rejoiced. She was named Aurora, for the sunshine she brought into their lives. But their joy was short-lived."

Rose closed her eyes, struggled to remember, felt suddenly very strongly that she did not want to be surprised by the end of this story.

"Many people attended Aurora's christening, from far and wide, for the king and queen are well-loved, and their legacy well-respected. Humans and the fair folk alike showered the baby Aurora with gifts and adoration. But there was one guest in attendance who had not been invited. An evil fairy who had only bitterness in her heart."

"Maleficent," Rose breathed, before she had fully decided to speak, before she had fully wrapped her mind around it. In her heart, she knew it to be true.

Fauna nodded. Tears were streaming down her cheeks now, but she grasped tightly onto Rose's hands, and she continued. "The evil fairy cursed Aurora to die," said Fauna tremulously. "She decreed that a spindle prick would be Aurora's end, before the sunset of her sixteenth birthday."

Fauna could not contain her tears now, but Flora came to her aid, held her shoulders firmly while she wept. Rose turned pleading eyes upon Flora.

"There were other fair folk in attendance, whose magic had not yet been spent. Mistress Merryweather's power might be no match for Maleficent's, but her desire to protect the baby princess was stronger than any evil spell. She decreed that if the curse should come to pass, the princess would only fall asleep, and true love's kiss might yet save her."

"But!" Merryweather interjected, vehemently. "It's not going to come to pass! Because we took you away, and we hid you in the forest, and Maleficent would never think to go knocking down the door of some poor old peasant women, and so all we've got to do is get you safely back to the castle, and you can be a princess again, and everyone will be happy!"

Rose glanced wildly between the three of them, all tearful eyes and hopeful faces as she felt her world crumbling around her. She thought of Maleficent and their strange conversations, thought of the mysterious man in the woods who had danced with her but who also set her nerves on edge, thought of how angry she'd been and how sorry she'd been and how she'd just wanted everything to go back to the way it had been before.

"No," she breathed, and stood. Fauna released her hands when she pulled them away. "No," she said again, and she ran upstairs and slammed her door closed against them.


	7. Chapter 7

"Rose?"

"Don't you mean Princess Aurora?" Rose fired back without thinking, her voice hoarse and sharp from crying.  She hadn't slept all night, had hardly moved all day but to pace around her room, in sorrow and in disbelief.

A long silence followed, but eventually, Aunt Fauna spoke again.  "Rosie, I know you're unhappy, and I wouldn't bother you, it's just that there's someone here to see you."

Just when Rose had thought she was all out of tears, a fresh sob doubled her over on her bed.  "Someone here to see me!" she cried.  All this time by herself and suddenly there was someone here to see her!  Who could it be?  Her long-lost family, perhaps?  The stranger in the woods who set her nerves on edge?

In truth there was exactly one person Briar Rose wished to speak to, and perhaps she didn't know very much, but she was absolutely certain it was not Maleficent waiting downstairs for her.

"Rose..." Aunt Fauna tried again.  "Perhaps it might make you feel better.  He...he says he knows you."

Guilt settled like nausea in Rose's stomach, and she was seized by the urge to apologize even though she was the one in pain.  I only met him last night when I was angry, she wanted to say.  I didn't even really want to see him again, I just didn't know what to say.

"Please," Rose choked out at last, and covered her face in her hands, hiding from no one.  "Can't you tell him to leave me alone?"

"But Rose!  Oh dear, this would be easier if you'd come out.  Rose, dear, I'll tell him to go away if you really want me to, but won't you just come down and speak with him?  You are betrothed, after all, and I thought since you'd met it might be easier..."

"Betrothed."  Suddenly it was as though all the air had left the room.

"Well, yes, dear.  You must remember the Lost Princess was betrothed to Prince Phillip of the North?"

 _I expect our family troubles are quite different_ , the man in the woods had said to her, smugly, like he was laughing at her, like he was better than her, and they were--!

Impulsively, Rose leapt to her feet and hurried to her window, and she leaned out as far as she could.  They'd already let the stranger who was a prince inside.  There was no one who could--and if she could just--but it was...

Rose looked down.  It was a bit of a drop, but the way the earth rose up around the little cottage, she didn't have too far to fall, so long as she was careful, and just the tiniest bit lucky.  She hazarded a glanze over her shoulder at the closed door behind her, imagined the face of her waiting auntie, trying to tell her to see reason, to see the way things were, the way they must be.  Rose squeezed her eyes closed against the surge of guilt.  Perhaps once, not so long ago, she could have accepted her fate.

She swung her legs over the windowsill and allowed herself to fall, rather gracelessly, down to where the earth rose up around the cottage.  When she'd recovered from the sheer anticipation of her decision, she pushed herself off from the bank and down to the ground below, where a far greater terror awaited her.

"Well," said a voice Briar Rose felt she would know anywhere.  "Isn't this a pretty picture."

 Rose pushed herself to her feet, dusting off her clothes, and trying not to show exactly how terrified she felt.  She looked up to meet Maleficent's gaze with as much courage as she'd ever possessed, but could think of nothing to say, or perhaps too much.

Maleficent glanced up to Rose's window, then traced the downward path she'd taken with her eyes.  "I take it the reunion with your _beloved_ was not to your liking, little princess?"  The way she said _beloved_ was like a curse all its own.

Rose's own gaze fell to her feet, and she wrapped her arms about herself, feeling suddenly very exposed.  "Please don't be cruel," she said.  "It's not as though I asked for any of this."

Maleficent chuckled mirthlessly.  "Really?  'Oh, you'll never see me again!  But maybe someday--why, maybe tomorrow!'"

Rose looked up sharply.  "You were spying on me."

Maleficent raised dramatic eyebrows, unconcerned.  "Which of us is not meant to be wandering the woods at night, little princess?" she wondered coolly.  "I assure you, if I'd had my way, I certainly wouldn't have chosen to bear witness to such a travesty."

It was too much to bear, and Rose felt herself panting from the effort of feeling upset, felt her fists clenching uselessly at her sides even as they trembled, felt her brow furrowing even as fresh tears prickled at the corners of her eyes.

"It was nothing like that!  It just--it all go out of hand so quickly, and now it's--and he's here, and you're here, and I'm--and you!" she pointed suddenly, focused her ire on the most immediate target.  "What kind of--of sick game are you playing, anyway?  Why not just--just kill me, and get it over with?  Why did you have to make me like you?  Everything is falling apart and it's...it's so--" she shook her head, held out her hands in defeat.

Silence reigned between them for a moment, unbroken even by birdsong.  When Maleficent spoke, much of the edge had left her voice.  "Why are you running away?"

"Rose?"

"Rose, what are you--oh!"

"Get away from her, you--!"

But no sooner had Rose's aunties come rushing out the front door, the stranger from the woods in tow, than Maleficent paralyzed the lot of them with a careless wave of her hand.

"Why," she repeated, low and emphatic, "are you running away?"

Rose bowed her head, clasped her hands.  "I wanted to talk to you," she breathed.

Maleficent folded her arms, slowly, deliberately.  "I see."

Rose could see her aunties and the man from the woods in her periphery, frozen on the spot, but she was afraid to look right at them.  They served as a very immediate reminder of what Maleficent could do.  "I don't understand," she said simply.  "I don't understand anything.  Why are you doing this?"

"Take a walk with me, little princess," said Maleficent, and the request was surprising enough that Rose met Maleficent's gaze once more.

Rose nodded her assent and fell into step beside Maleficent.

"My plan was quite simple," said Maleficent.  "I would have you wonder, instead, at the machinations of your three fairy guardians."

"What do you mean?" Rose shook her head.

"It was their idea to keep you here, not a stone's throw from my fortress," said Maleficent, "their idea to tell you nothing other than that the world beyond is dangerous, and that you oughtn't to speak to strangers.  Impossible limitations, sure to be disobeyed by even the most well-tempered of charges."

"They were--I mean, it's... They were trying to protect me," Rose said, feebly.

"By hiding you in plain sight?" Maleficent countered.  "By arming you with nothing?"  She scoffed.  "I could have crushed you like an insect.  I could have bent you to my will within the span of an hour."

Rose stopped walking.  "Then why didn't you?"

Maleficent turned on her, tall and looming, something unreadable shining in her dark eyes.  "Is that what you'd prefer, _princess?"_

Rose did her best not to cower, and twisted her hands in her skirt to keep them from shaking.  "Of course not, I just don't understand!  Why be kind to me at all?"

Maleficent narrowed her eyes thoughtfully, and she approached with inhuman slowness.  "I spent a very long time looking for you, little princess," she said, low and rich and dangerously smooth.  "So, you tell me: which would be a more interesting way to pass the time?"  She reached out and traced the curve of Rose's jaw lightly with the tips of her fingers, and Rose, against her better judgement, felt inclined to lean into the touch. 

"Should I have succumbed to the fire of the moment?" she wondered, curling her fingers at the back of Rose's neck, drawing her closer.  "Fulfilled a plan from a simpler time, and called the whole matter a colossal waste of time?"

Maleficent's fingers traced the curve of her neck once more, and settled beneath Rose's chin, lifting it almost gently.  Her lip curled.  "Where's the sport in that?"

Maleficent made to withdraw, but Rose caught her hand.  Maleficent's eyes widened dangerously, but Rose did not let go.  "Why do you want me to die?" she demanded, or perhaps pled.  "Why would someone want anyone to die?  What have I done?"

Maleficent flicked her hand, and Briar Rose withdrew hers, seized by a shock of pain that caused her to cry out, but was gone as quickly as it had come.

"It's not a question of what you've done, little princess," said Maleficent, more sharply than before, "but rather of your mere existence.  Your parents forfeited their right to keep you when they saw fit to turn up their noses at me."

"But I've got nothing to do with my parents!" Rose cried.  "I've never even met them!  I didn't even know they--I thought they were dead, that's what my aunties told me, and now they're--!"  She waved her hands vaguely in frustration, settled them at last upon her face, and found to her surprise that she felt once more like she might cry.

"And anyway, you haven't answered my question at all," she continued miserably.  "You've just raised a thousand more.  So you want me dead because of something my parents did.  So I'm weak and stupid and I'm standing right here!"  Rose held out her trembling hands, felt hot tears spilling down her cheeks.  "I'm right here, so do it!  Kill me!"

Maleficent stood, eerily still, still like stone, and her expression had become unreadable.

"Well?" Rose breathed into the silence.

Maleficent turned her back on Rose, and she began, very slowly, to walk away.  "It seems such a waste," she said, quietly, but so crystal clear her voice seemed to resonate in Rose's very soul, "such an effort expended upon one so deliberately foolish."  Maleficent waved her hand in the general direction from whence they'd come.  "Go back to your aunties and your Prince Charming," she spat.  "Perhaps you will learn to fear for your fragile existence in what time you have left."

"Wait!" Rose called out, long before she fully understood why.

Maleficent stopped, but did not turn around.

"Please, I...I don't want to go back there."

 _And what do you want, instead?_ she half-expected Maleficent to fire back.  A sleep-deprived madwoman who begged for death at the slightest inconvenience.  Some princess Briar Rose would make.

What Maleficent said, not unlike so many of the things she said, raised far more questions than it answered.  "Unfortunately, _little princess_ , the world does not revolve around what either one of us wants."


	8. Chapter 8

The mountains were unbearably silent.

Maleficent's minions had sensed her mood upon her arrival and made a hasty retreat, but it was more than that.  No skittering feet, no flutter of wings, not even a gust of wind reached Maleficent's ears.  The result was that, by comparison, her thoughts were loud.  Inescapably so.

Why hadn't she put an end to the matter of the Princess Aurora upon sight?  Simple.  The Princess Aurora and the person Briar Rose were not one and the same.  The Princess Aurora was a nothing.  A concept.  The person, Briar Rose, was...

A wiser person would have understood, for Maleficent had not been subtle.  A person who had seen the strange ways in which people cared would have known, perhaps even without asking.  But Briar Rose had been denied that most basic knowledge, and Maleficent would sooner die than admit it aloud.

Because in truth the difference should be immaterial.  A person inhabiting a concept had never altered Maleficent's plans before.  Why now?  Why, after all this time, should she suddenly find herself so enchanted by something so commonplace as a person that the concept had very nearly ceased to matter to her?

Maleficent ceased her frenzied pacing long enough to sit at last, and she cradled her head in her hands.  A curious thought: for however imbecilic, however self-righteously arrogant Maleficent had thought it that the Good Fairies had kept so much from their charge, in a way it was her guilelessness that had saved her from Maleficent's wrath.

Maleficent inhaled deeply, the sound of her own breathing intolerable in the stillness that surrounded her.  There was nothing to be done about it now.  With some distance from the situation, she could see her courses of action laid out before her clearly, and all, apart from one, were means to the same end.

The simplest thing to do would be, essentially, nothing.  Outrage coupled with sleepless frustration had rendered her spiteful, and she'd been driven beyond reason to weave poetic justice for herself.  But now that she knew where the princess was, her magic would run its course without further interference.  If the fairies or the prince caused any trouble, she would imprison them.  Indeed, she would have no qualms about eviscerating any one of them.

Let the princess sleep for a hundred years.  The effect was the same.  The King and Queen lost their precious gift, and in their foolish attempt to thwart Maleficent a second time, had not even enjoyed her company for the sixteen years they had been granted.

As deeply as Maleficent wished to nod her head firmly, to glean satisfaction from the knowledge that her decision had been made and her plan would soon come to fruition, there remained the matter of the one mutinous course of action which, now that she had seen it, could not be so easily banished from her consciousness.

She could cease this foolishness.  Whatever Merryweather had done to her spell, she could untangle it and revoke it.  She could let the princess have her handsome prince and her fairy's song and her graceful waltz, and bow out gracefully, let the kingdom think what it might—that they had triumphed or that it was a feint.  What did it matter to her?

 _Please_ , the little princess had said to her.  _I don't want to go back there_.

Maleficent took in a shuddering breath.

Briar Rose would not fare well in her new life.  The Good Fairies had left her unarmed with any manner of knowledge—much as they seemed to care for her, they did not know how to help her.  The king was woefully unobservant, the queen woefully obedient to him, and the prince—well, Maleficent would save her colourful opinion of the prince for another time.  The little princess would receive no real assistance from them.  Those who deserved to would not suffer, only glad to have their precious possession back under foot.

It was unthinkable.  A hundred years' sleep was a kinder fate.

_What kind of sick game are you playing, anyway?_

A question she’d been posed innumerable times.  Why should it hang with her now?  Another trick of fairy’s magic?  A voice which would not leave her be, sequestered away in her fortress where even the simplest sounds of nature could not reach her? 

She knew the way the trick worked: the rise and fall of the voice affected the listener as one desired.  Yet, she had never noticed it in the three Good Fairies, never thought even the least objectionable of them capable.  What was more, she could not imagine how the trick could be effective when employed by one so guileless.

A great waste of magical power was this Briar Rose who would become the Lost Princess, with her bewitching voice and her graceful waltz and her wide, searching eyes and her artless questions.

A far greater waste, Maleficent could not help but to think, that such a creature should lie dormant for a century whilst her world continued on without her.  They would suffer for her loss, certainly, but would they truly understand it?  How long would they mourn her, their beloved princess, whom they had hidden away all these years?

Would it be so very different to them, a princess lost or a princess asleep?

Maleficent sighed heavily and leaned back in her throne.  The simplest course of action—the one which stood little chance of unforeseen complications, unwanted consequences—was to do nothing, to allow her magic to come to pass as it was intended.  Maleficent would watch over the little princess while she slumbered, would sit by her side when she woke.  Briar Rose would not understand, would not know that a hundred years’ sleep was the kindest fate Maleficent could offer, but that was to be expected.  The world did not revolve around what either one of them wanted.

Maleficent opened her eyes.  Her surroundings came back into focus, perhaps, she realized, for the first time in years.  In the distance she could hear skittering feet, the flutter of wings, the occasional gust of wind.  Order restored.

* * *

 

After Maleficent had left her alone in the woods, bereft of the only friend she had ever known, Briar Rose fell to her knees, wracked by sobs she hardly felt capable of after such a long night of sorrow.  When she heard her aunties calling out for her, she could do nothing but to allow herself to be found, could do nothing but to allow the man from the woods to pick her up and carry her home, though it set her nerves on edge to be so close to him and so far from the ground.

She could do nothing but stare in silence as they questioned her, could offer no explanation for what had transpired, could not tell them what Maleficent had done or why—and they didn’t ask this outright, but Briar Rose knew what they meant to ask—why Maleficent had left her alive.

What would they have her say?  That Maleficent had not killed her because there was no sport in it?  It seemed such a cruel sentiment.  It weighed heavy upon Briar Rose’s own heart—how could she foist that burden upon her aunties, who had tried to warn her?

 _She is just the sort of person I hope you never have to meet_ , Aunt Fauna had said to her, and Briar Rose had thought her callous for saying it.  She had tossed and turned at night wondering if her only friend in the world could be evil, had felt foolish for simply asking—and what had the answer been?

 _That depends upon your definition_.

The man who was her betrothed, the stranger who was a prince, with his smug smile and his grating laughter, left without incident.  Rose couldn’t remember a single thing he had said.  Rose’s aunties tucked her into bed and fussed over her, but then they left her alone to sleep, and the world felt unbearably silent after they’d closed the door behind them.

A handful of days passed hazily, each blending into the next.  Briar Rose woke each day at the usual time, helped her aunties with the chores, and tried her hand at reading.  She wondered idly whether she would be permitted to go for a walk in the woods, if she’d asked.  The thought held no appeal to her.  What awaited her in the woods now?

It was Aunt Merryweather who had the ill fortune of getting an answer out of Rose on the matter of Maleficent.

“Well, I wouldn’t want to talk about it, either,” she was saying, but the sound of her voice felt distant.  “It’s just that this isn’t really like her.  We don’t know what to expect.”

“She won’t come back here,” Rose snapped.  “She just came to—to...”  To what?  To gloat?  To threaten?  To…

Explain?

“Well, anyway, she sounded pretty certain that her curse would come to pass when she intended it to,” Rose finished flatly.  The thought turned her stomach.  Her aunties didn’t know what to expect!  And what was Briar Rose to expect?  What was she to—

What was she to _do_ , when her aunts had _armed her with nothing?_

Briar Rose had been drawn to Maleficent, she realized, not just because she was the only person Rose had ever met outside of her aunties, but because of the promise she held, the promise of information.  Rose had wanted to run to Maleficent even knowing of her curse, even knowing Maleficent might still want Rose dead, because she needed to know, needed answers when all she had ever gotten were vague warnings about pricking her fingers and not wandering the woods at night.

Merryweather stammered a handful of senseless words, meaning to comfort, perhaps, but accomplishing little, and she left Rose alone.  The days stretched into a fortnight or so, and with no sign of Maleficent, her aunties began to relax.  It was only another week or two until her proper birthday, and then…

 _My plan was quite simple_ , Maleficent had told her.  _I would have you wonder, instead, at the machinations of your three fairy guardians._

“Aunt Flora?” Rose asked one afternoon, when she’d had quite enough of the page she wasn’t trying very hard to read.

“Yes, dear.”

“If you don’t mind my asking...what is your plan?  For Maleficent’s curse?”

Flora looked up from her own book, alarmed, and Rose half-expected her not to answer.  Once she had recovered from the apparent shock of the question, however, she spoke, with uncharacteristic caution.  “Well, there’s to be a celebration,” she said.  “The day after your birthday, to celebrate your return to the kingdom.”

“No, I mean...I mean, what about before that?”

“Well, we’ll keep you here, dear,” said Flora, perplexed.  “Until sunset.  Then we’ll escort you to the castle.”

“But suppose Maleficent stops us on the way?” Rose pressed, growing frustrated.

Flora closed her book and stood, and she came over to the little table where Rose sat.  “Now you listen to me, Rose,” she said, gently, but with conviction, “I know the three of us must not seem like much compared to Maleficent, and our magic certainly isn’t as strong as hers, but we love you.  We're not going to let anything happen to you."

Rose was stricken silent.  Flora squeezed her hands and smoothed her hair, and then she returned to her book.

Rose stared at her for a long while, wondered what it must be like to feel so certain of something so vague, so meaningless.  She was cursed to fall into an endless slumber in a handful of days, and all her auntie could say was that somehow, she would not allow it to happen, by means of just simply wanting it?

Unfortunately, little princess, the world does not revolve around what either one of us wants.

Rose stood violently and threw her book to the floor.

"Rose!"

She ran out the front door and into the woods, and she began to sing.  Loudly.  Horribly.  Bits of any song that came to mind, until words failed her and she sang nothing at all.  Birds and other creatures scattered out of her path in surprise as she went, and distantly she could hear her aunties calling out after her, but she didn't care.

She sang and she screamed and she wept up into the open sky above the trees, sang and screamed and wept for the life she must leave behind and the life she could never truly know, and prayed that someone, be it her aunties or her lost family or her would-be executioner, might hear her and understand.


	9. Chapter 9

"Rose."

Briar Rose didn't respond.  Aunt Flora came in anyway.

"It's time to go, dear."

She had cried and screamed herself hoarse.  She had banged on the walls, broken everything from plates to furniture, clawed at her own skin until her aunties bandaged up her hands. 

It didn't change anything, and now she had nothing left to feel but for a hollow, sinking dread.  It was time to go.

It was time to go and become another person, live another life with a new name and a new husband she couldn't stand and a new list of responsibilities she could scarcely imagine, or it was time to walk into the clutches of a monster because no one seemed to know what else to do.  More than that, no one had even thought to consider that there could be anything else to do.

Flora helped her into her princess's clothes, and Fauna covered her in a heavy cloak.  She was crying.  Rose felt nothing.  Perhaps even the slightest bit of resentment.

What Maleficent had told her proved almost alarmingly correct.  The walk into the village that surrounded the castle was not long at all.  She could see the distant shadows of a foreboding structure in the fading light of day.  Her aunties had hidden her in plain sight.

Once they were safely inside the castle walls, her aunties began to speak.  They told her about the king and queen, about some of their advisors, and about the problems they'd been facing that they hoped to solve through Rose's marriage to Philip.  Philip's kingdom had better resources, better connections—

"And what do we have?" Rose wondered.

Her aunties grew strangely silent then, and none of them seemed to want to give her an answer.  Rose stopped and looked at each one of them in turn.

Flora reached out and touched the bandages that covered her forearm.  "You, child.  We have you."

She didn't understand.  Suddenly she wasn't certain she wanted to.  She pulled away from Flora and gestured that they should continue their journey.

They climbed a winding staircase and led her into a lavish room with lavish chairs and a beautiful vanity.  Flora built a fire in the fireplace with the wave of a wand, Merryweather bolted the door behind them, and Fauna pulled the drapes closed against the setting sun.  Briar Rose watched them impassively.  It was an odd thought, that her aunties could do magic the way Maleficent could do magic.  She hadn't really had time to think about it, for all her carrying on over the last few days.

Her aunties sat her down at the vanity and combed her hair and powdered her face.  There was so much to tell her and so much to do before morning came, they told her, and so she must prepare to lead the life of a princess.  To be a princess was always to look her best.  Briar Rose nodded her understanding, and in doing so gave her assent.

"Oh!" Flora cried suddenly, and drew out her wand again.  "Sisters, if you would?"

Fauna and Merryweather drew out their wands together, and Rose watched them as though from a great distance, as though this were nothing more than a strange dream.  Together her aunties waved their wands and from their magic came a crown fit for a princess.

Rose stared at it, uncomprehending.  She had never seen so many lavish things as she had in this one room, from the ornate chairs the vanity where she sat.  Such a useless thing, a crown made of gold and jewels.  Useless like the list of names of people she had never met, useless like the books she hadn't wanted to read, useless like the secretive way they stole through the forest because they somehow believed that Maleficent wouldn't find her here.

She hadn't felt much of anything all day.  She'd spent the daylight hours drifting in and out of consciousness, too exhausted from her week of senseless fits to care what might befall her this evening.  Her aunties had tried to coax her downstairs with food, but the mere idea turned her stomach.  She'd scarcely been able to keep anything down all week.

 _That's quite all right, Rosie_ , said Aunt Fauna.  _There'll be a wonderful feast to celebrate your return, with foods you've never even dreamed of!_

 _To celebrate Princess Aurora's return,_ she'd almost snapped back, but instead she'd just started crying again, and Fauna had left her alone not long after that.

In the present, Rose turned away from the sight of them, smiling hopefully with the crown in their hands, but the only sight that greeted her was her own face in the mirror.  Flora came up behind her and placed the crown atop Rose's head. 

She wasn't certain what broke her.  The sight of it, the weight of it, or something else entirely?  She couldn't begin to understand why she started crying, nor could she have imagined she'd have more tears to shed.

"Oh, Rose..."  This from Merryweather, who had been stone silent all evening.

"Leave her be, Merryweather," said Flora, with a sternness that hurt Rose's heart.  "We'll come back later, Rose.  There's much to do before the dawn."

Rose felt Merryweather's hand fall from her back, heard her aunties' footsteps retreating from her, heard the bolted door creak open across the room.

"You know we love you, Rosie," said Fauna.

"Of course," Flora agreed.

"No matter what," Merryweather finished firmly.

But then the door closed behind them, and Rose was alone again.  She scrubbed the sleeve of her dress across her face, belatedly remembering that she oughtn't to treat such finery the way she treated her usual clothes, and then remembering that these were now to be her usual clothes.  She felt a chill in the air and realized suddenly that the room had gone dark.  Flora's fire had gone out.

"Such a foolish sentiment."  It was a voice Rose ought to have expected, but she startled all the same.  "Love."

Rose looked up.  All she could see in the near-darkness was Maleficent's outline.  She must be mad to feel relieved that Maleficent was here, but somehow a cursed slumber seemed preferable to the looming celebration for someone she didn't want to become.

"They don't know what else to say," said Rose.  Her voice was hoarse and broken.  It hurt to speak.  "I've been rather terrible to them these last few days.  The last few weeks, really."

Suddenly there was light again.  Maleficent held a flame in her hand that had sparked to life from nothing, and she tossed it into the fireplace.  The room glowed an eerie green.

Rose considered the flame a moment.  She wanted to stand, to move closer to it, but suddenly she acutely felt the exhaustion and malnutrition of the last few days, and instead, she rested her head in her hand.

"You've hurt yourself," Maleficent remarked.

Rose sighed.  "Why should you care?  If you had it your way, I'd be dead."

Maleficent was silent a moment.  "If I'd had it my way," she began, slowly, "the Princess Aurora would be dead."

Rose looked up.  Maleficent approached, still little more than a shadow in her strange green light.

"You are a different matter."

"No one else seems to think so," said Rose.

From this distance, she could just barely make out the shape of Maleficent's eyes, the line of her hooked nose, the sharpness of her jaw.  Maleficent inclined her head.  "People see whatever they need to see."

Rose remembered suddenly why she had so relished her strange conversations with Maleficent, even when she had been little more than a cruel and cryptic stranger.  There was a sense about her that she knew things—important things—things Rose would very much like to know, too.

"What is it really like?" she wondered.  "Being a princess?"

"You think I would know?" Maleficent scoffed, almost gently.

"You seem to know so many things," said Rose.  "Why not this?"

Maleficent's shadow shifted in the strange light, but Rose could not tell what it meant, or where she was looking.  Her voice seemed both very near and very far away.  "The people will adore you," she said.  "In the way one adores a pretty doll, or a jeweled crown."

"Useless," Rose breathed aloud.

"Not at all," said Maleficent.  "Pretty things can be very useful."

"My aunties acted like...they said I was some kind of trade-off," said Rose suddenly, remembering something she'd barely processed before. "But they won't tell me why.  Philip's kingdom has resources and connections.  What do I have to offer?"

Even Maleficent hesitated before she responded.  When she did, Rose understood why her aunties wouldn't.  "Children, I should imagine."

Rose felt like she might be sick again, but there was nothing left in her stomach.  "Is that all?"

"The main thing."

"That sounds..." Rose closed her eyes "...terrible."

"I agree."

Certainty washed over Rose, cold as ice.  She squinted in the strange light until she could just barely make out Maleficent's eyes.  "You're trying to save me."

Maleficent didn't respond, didn't even move.

Rose stood.  She had to steady herself on the vanity table with her bandaged hand.  She felt dizzy, light-headed, unreal.

"I don't want to be a princess," Rose whispered, as though it were a secret.  As though there were anyone who could hear.

"I know," said Maleficent.

Rose drew nearer to the foreboding shadow across the room.  As her form eclipsed the light from the fireplace, her features became clearer, but her expression was as unreadable as ever.

Rose looked up into her eyes anyway.  "Will it hurt?"

Maleficent's brow furrowed then, so subtly Rose wondered whether she was just seeing what she needed to see.  But when Maleficent spoke again, her voice was softer.  "You've never pricked your finger."  It was almost, but not quite, a question.

"I wasn't allowed," said Rose, needlessly.  All of it so unnecessary.  "I felt badly for you when we met," she continued, long before she'd fully realized what she meant to say. 

"Did you?"

Rose's fingers found the fraying edges of the bandages on her arms as she spoke.  "I thought it must be terrible for you not to have anyone to come home to," she said.  "Now I think it might be better."

"Why?"

"Because...someone can love you...and then you can change..." Rose closed her eyes.  "And then they don't know how to love you anymore.  So they just...leave."

"They're right outside the door," said Maleficent.  She inclined her head in the direction her aunties had gone.

"Please," Rose looked up at Maleficent.  "Don't hurt them."

"As you wish," said Maleficent.

"We would always have ended up here, wouldn't we?" she wondered suddenly.  "No matter what I did, where I went, who tried to hide me, it would always have come to this.  That's why they couldn't think of a better way to protect me."

The shadow of Maleficent's long-fingered hand reached out in the green firelight.  She drew a lock of Rose's hair between her fingers and tucked it behind Rose's ear.  Rose was seized by the urge to catch Maleficent's hand in hers, to press it to her cheek, but she resisted.  It felt wrong to want Maleficent here at all, let alone to long for her touch.  Maleficent was here to be her executioner, not her saviour.

Or perhaps she had become both.

"Are you ready to go?" Maleficent asked her, almost gently.

Rose turned her head in the direction of her aunties, but saw only darkness.  Perhaps they were only on the other side of the door, but they might just as well be back at the cottage in the woods, back with the remnants of the life she had left behind.

She felt her head spin and her knees go weak, and she staggered into Maleficent's arms.  "I don't know if I can go anywhere," she breathed into the fabric of Maleficent's robes.  "I'm so tired."

But Maleficent held her fast, and then Maleficent swept her right off of her unsteady legs and carried her into the place where the fire had been just a second prior.  Rose felt her stomach twist, equal parts anticipation and terror, but Maleficent's hold was firm and her gait was smooth, and Briar Rose was tired of fighting.  She wrapped her arms about Maleficent's neck and rested her head upon Maleficent's shoulder.

"Fear not, little princess," she murmured.  "Soon you will sleep."

"How long?" Rose wondered, but the answer seemed suddenly unimportant.

"I don't know," said Maleficent.

"When I wake..." Rose began, but the words were lost in a yawn.  She felt her eyelids growing heavy.  "When I wake, will you be with me?"

Maleficent was silent for a moment.  "If you wish it."

Rose felt solid ground beneath her feet once more, but she was not certain she could stand on her own at all any longer.  This room, wherever they were now, glowed with the same eerie green light from before, but this time it illuminated Maleficent's face.

Rose clutched onto Maleficent's arms and looked up into her dark eyes.  She felt herself beginning to smile at the thought of awakening to a happier future.  "Will you teach me how to dance?"

Maleficent's brow furrowed subtly, and her lower lip twitched.  "Anything," she swore, low and harsh and reverent.

Without fully understanding why, Briar Rose felt compelled to look over her shoulder.  She supposed she ought to have expected to see a spinning wheel there, but the sight of it was so strange to her.  She had never seen one outside of picture books.  Her aunties had told her that all the spinning wheels in the country had been burned when Maleficent cursed the baby princess.

All of it so needless.  They would always have ended up here.

Rose leaned heavily upon Maleficent's arm as she approached the spinning wheel.  Curiously, Maleficent seemed reluctant to draw nearer, and only followed where Rose led.  Rose reached out her hand experimentally, and she felt a flicker of fear somewhere within her.  What would become of her aunties?  Of the boy in the woods with the grating laughter and the princely title?  Of the kingdom full of people waiting for someone who had never really existed?

"Are you frightened?" Maleficent asked her, low and quiet, just shy of her ear.

Rose shivered.  "A little."

Somewhere far away, she could hear three voices calling for her.  "Rose!  Rose!  Don't touch anything!"

She felt a little pang of guilt.  They would feel terrible when they found her.  But if they'd had their way, she wouldn't have known what awaited her.  At least this way she understood.  At least now she might meet her fate with some dignity.

"Rose!  Rose!" 

The voices were coming closer.  Too close.  Rose fixed her gaze upon the spindle, wanted to ask, will it hurt?  But what did it matter?  There was no other way.  She could not go back to them, could not go back to Philip and a kingdom full of people who would adore her as one adored a jeweled crown, golden, heavy, and useless.

She pressed her finger to the spindle until it stung.  She felt herself collapse into Maleficent's arms, heard her aunties screaming "No!", heard Maleficent murmur, "Sweet dreams, little princess," and then Briar Rose knew nothing more.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for sticking with me, and for your incredibly kind words! This story continues to surprise me, so I hope you'll bear with me!

As Briar Rose fell, Maleficent sank to her knees to ease her descent.  The three fairies were still crying out for her.  The knowledge that they would soon see her like this ought to have spurred her to some sort of action, but she found she could not bring herself to rise.

"Maleficent!"

"You—you—!" Merryweather tried.  The youngest of the fairy sisters was a feisty little thing, but ruled entirely by wild emotion, she lacked for words more often than not.

"You fiend!" Flora finished for her.  The eldest sister, on the other hand, was of the opinion that she always knew what to say.

Maleficent did not look up.  Briar Rose was sleeping peacefully now.  She could not hear them. 

"Poor, simple fools," she said quietly. 

"Get away from her!"

"Haven't you done enough?"

Maleficent felt a small huff of incredulity escape her lips.  She combed her fingers idly through Briar Rose's hair, pulled loose strands into place.  She was still breathing, but her skin was eerily cold.

"Maleficent?"  Softer, hesitant.  The voice of the middle sister, Fauna.

At last she made to stand, and took Briar Rose in her arms as she did so.  She looked upon the three little fairies at last.  Two were enraged, with tiny fists balled up at their sides.  One wrapped her arms about herself, and struggled to curb the flow of tears from her wide eyes.

It was to Fauna that Maleficent directed her reply.  "Surely you knew that this would always come to pass in the end."

Her elder and younger sister spluttered meaningless arguments.  Fauna inhaled, hesitated, then closed her eyes and bowed her head.  She tugged at her sisters' sleeves until they fell silent.  "There's nothing we can do now," she said quietly.

Flora's expression turned from twisted-up rage to grave acceptance.  When she looked at Maleficent again, it was with a far calmer shade of fury.  "No," she agreed.  "Not now."

Maleficent inclined her head thoughtfully.  "I eagerly await your renewed efforts to thwart my will," she said.

The fairies ceased their retreat, and turned over their shoulders tentatively.  A small, affected smile graced Maleficent's lips then, and she inclined her head once more, this time in the direction of the little princess she held in her arms.

"But do remember the cards I hold," she finished.

* * *

It was a curious notion, to be trapped inside a dream.  Dreams were meant to be made out of things half-remembered, bleary and never solid enough to seem real upon close inspection, and since Briar Rose knew so little of the world, her dreams up until now had been similarly finite.

This place was different.  Decidedly dreamy, but well beyond the confines of her own mind.

Perhaps she had expected silence, or the murky quietness of slumber, but she was certain she could hear voices in the distance.  Talking, yelling, laughing, singing, screaming, all at once, from everywhere and nowhere.

Paths began to form beneath her feet, each twisting into the infinite darkness around her, bizarrely clear against the nothingness that surrounded them.  Briar Rose looked down and was surprised to perceive her feet at the crossroads of the winding pathways around her.  Darkness all around, yet she herself was not shrouded in it.

A very large part of her, settled somewhere in the pit of her stomach, if indeed such a measure existed in this place, felt very strongly that she ought to sit down and stay right here for the foreseeable future.  _Wait_ , she thought to herself, but wait for what?

Wait until her aunties came and found her?  Wait until her Prince Charming showed up to sweep her off her feet?  What had Briar Rose done her whole life but wait for nothing?

This was a curious sort of dream, to be certain, but it must still belong to her, mustn't it?  Nothing here could hurt her.

Could it?

Rose turned in a slow circle, investigated each of the paths that wound away from where she stood, and after a very short while decided it didn't much matter which path she took.  _How long?_ she had asked Maleficent, for Maleficent might be cruel, might even be evil, but she had told Rose more of the truth than anyone else.  She had asked Maleficent how long she would sleep, and Maleficent had told her that she didn't know.

The path she chose felt strangely solid beneath her feet.  Not like walking on nothing, as one sometimes felt in dreams.  It was disconcerting to feel as though she were in the center of utter nothingness, but eventually shapes began to form before her, unclear and ill-defined, but also unaffected by the darkness around them.

Unsettling though it was, Briar Rose found that she felt quite relieved to be seeing anything at all, and she quickened her steps towards the strange new shapes as they solidified.  She began to see a little campsite, with tents and a little fire in the middle.  Something inside her thought to call out as she approached, but she was rendered just as easily silent.

Before the fire was a woman on her knees, cradling a child in her arms.  Her head was bowed, but Briar Rose could tell that she was crying.

"What's the matter?" she tried to ask, but the words came out murky and distant, as though they had come from someone very far away.

Still the woman looked up with a tear-streaked face, and she answered.  "I knew there was no hope," she said, "and yet still I mourn."

Rose dared a few steps closer.  She wasn't certain what to say, struggled to forget the strangeness of her own voice.  "No hope?"

The woman bowed her head once more. "Nary a healthy child in this land for years beyond counting," she said. "They try to get the others to come here, but what have they to offer? No hope, no hope, no..." She began to rock the child in her arms, and Briar Rose realized suddenly that there wasn't a child at all, just a bundled up blanket.

Rose knelt before the fire and reached out to the grieving woman. The woman regarded Rose's hand upon her arm with muted surprise, but she did not flinch or lash out, only looked up again. "I'd heard about that," she said gently. "About the children. I'm sorry."

The woman's lip twitched, and her first response was a strangled sort of huff. "It's only getting worse," she replied, and somehow it was the saddest thing she could have said.

"Worse?" Rose echoed.

The woman returned her attention to the bundle of blankets in her arms. "How can it get better? All the medics and midwives in the land slandered like witches. Not a fortnight prior there was a woman strung up in the town square. I didn't know her, but my friend swore it was the very woman who delivered her daughter."

The woman spoke tremulously, but with a stillness about her that unsettled Rose far more than mere words. Horror washed over her in waves. It was a curious notion to be trapped in a dream, but this place was far beyond anything Briar Rose could ever have imagined. "People think it's their fault?" she managed. "The medics and midwives?"

"It follows, doesn't it?" said the woman.  "Things the way they are now, whether a baby dies or lives is sure to seem like witchcraft."

"Is that what you think?" Rose asked her.

The woman looked up again. Her face wasn't tear-streaked anymore. Her eyes had gone dark and distant as the void around them. "What will happen when all the medics and midwives are strung up in the town square, and our children still die?" she asked, in a voice that seemed to be fading away. "Where will the blame fall then?"

"Wait!" Rose cried, but she too sounded as though she might fade away into nothingness.  The woman and her bundle of blankets were already gone, and the tents and the campfire faded away with her.  Briar Rose was left alone once more.

* * *

Back at the cottage in the glen, which felt empty and dark without their little Rose to brighten their lives, the three grieving fairies were rather surprised to receive a visitor in the form of Prince Phillip.  As far as they could tell, he had been quite satisfied with the previous visit, and they hadn't expected to see him again until the morning's celebration.

Perhaps, each thought to herself with a spark of hope, Phillip really had taken a fancy to his betrothed.  Perhaps there might be hope in him to save her from Maleficent's curse.

Indeed, his initial reaction was promising.  "Where is she?" he demanded with a fire in his eyes.  "What's become of her?"

"The princess sleeps along with her waiting kingdom, for the time being," Flora told him.  "But Maleficent will guard her well—"

"Maleficent," Phillip echoed with a sneer.  "That monster will not stand in my way!"

"Prince Phillip," Fauna tried, gently.  "Maleficent has powers beyond what most humans can even imagine."

"And it's not just that," Flora continued, more firmly.  "Maleficent's power is secondary to her thirst for vengeance.  She has torn this land apart for the sake of her curse upon the princess."

"Then I shall do the same, ten times over," Phillip replied vehemently.

And perhaps he meant it to sound noble, or devoted, or courageous.  But the three good fairies had seen this land torn apart time and again across the span of centuries.  Without really understanding the desires that lay dormant within their own hearts, they found suddenly that they had hoped for something a bit different in the years to come.

"Use caution, your Highness," said Flora at last.  "We will aid you with our magic in whatever way we can, but it will take something more than mere determination to defeat Maleficent."

Phillip shook his head, almost disbelieving.  "What will it take?"

Many things came to mind, most of them unique to each of the three fairies.  _Patience_ , thought Fauna worriedly.  _Cleverness_ , thought Flora with concern.

"Luck," said Merryweather aloud, but it was not in her usual abrasive way.  Her features were grave, and her tone sincere.  "Very, very good luck."

Phillip's expression softened at last then.  He looked between the three little fairies with a knitted brow, hoping for something more, but Merryweather's sisters did not deny her.

* * *

It wasn't long before Briar Rose felt compelled to stand and return to the path she'd followed to the grieving woman's campfire.  Rose contemplated the way she had come and the way ahead and decided upon returning to the place where the paths intersected, assuming such a place still existed.  She did not relish the thought of becoming lost in such a place as this, and though a particular spot in the midst of nothingness was not very much to cling to, it was all she had.

When she reached the crossroads where she'd found herself first, she chose a different path at random, feeling strangely numb at the prospect of stumbling upon another scene as disturbing as the one she'd just witnessed.

 _Nary a healthy child in the land for years beyond counting_ , the woman had said.  It was what her aunties had been loath to tell her and what Maleficent had implied, almost gently, like the idea was objectionable even to her.  The idea that Briar Rose, or rather the Princess Aurora, ought to be able to provide the children the kingdom lacked.  She, herself!  How was she to solve a problem that had lasted for years beyond counting?

Shapes began to form in the distance.  Another campfire, Rose thought as she drew nearer, but this one was different.  Wrong.  It wasn't surrounded by tents or trees or signs of life.  It was surrounded by cobblestone and shop fronts, like the center of a town square.

In the center of the strange fire, there was a pillar.  As Rose drew nearer and the shapes solidified, she felt the air rent from her lungs.

There was a person tied to the pillar.

Rose raced forward.  She tried to scream, but could not feel the sound within her own body, could scarcely hear her own voice in this dreadful place.  She stopped short when she reached the person on fire, because the person in question seemed....well, she seemed calm.  Resigned.

"You're..." Rose tried, gesturing vaguely to the fire.  "You're not in pain?"

The woman's face was tear-streaked like the grieving mother, but her features were peaceful.  "Not for a long time now," she said.

Rose closed her eyes and sank to her knees, felt she might weep for the horror of this place where she must while away some unknowable span of time.  "I don't know what that means," she said miserably.

"I'm just an echo of something that happened before," said the woman on fire.  "Many times, many people.  People do funny things when they're frightened, when they can't see what lies ahead."

Rose squeezed her eyes closed tighter, struggled to wrap her mind around the words the woman had spoken.  "The other woman, with the... She said...midwives and medics..."

"A child dies, the family wants someone to blame," said the woman on fire.  "A child lives?  The aggrieved don't know where to turn.  Why not their children?"

Rose scrubbed at her eyes and looked up at last, hesitantly.  "What happens when...when all the medics and the midwives are dead, and the children still die?" Rose asked her, the same as the grieving woman had asked Rose before she disappeared.

The woman on fire smiled.  "That is the question, isn't it?"

"Please," said Rose, shaking her head.  "Everyone is acting like I can do something to help, but I don't know what to do.  What can one person do?  About something like this?"

"There is hope yet," said the woman with a thoughtful tilt of her head that reminded Rose rather uncomfortably of Maleficent.  The woman on fire turned her head to look beyond where Rose knelt, and Rose scrambled to her feet to follow the woman's gaze.

New shapes were forming, a crowd of people dressed in finery, the likes of which Briar Rose had never witnessed.  They were happy, laughing and chattering amongst themselves as a grand ballroom materialized around them.  Then the crowd turned and took in a collective gasp before exploding into an uproarious cheer.

A rich red carpet had formed beneath Rose's feet.  She followed its path to the focus of the crowd's wonderment: children.  Maybe ten of them, all dressed in finery like the rest, most with golden hair, all smiling and laughing.

A sudden, terrible fear gripped Briar Rose's heart and she turned back away from the children and the crowd, but the woman on fire was gone, and there were only more finely-dressed spectators in her place.

Rose turned back to look at the children, felt dread pooling in her stomach as she tried not to wrap her mind around what her body already knew.

The children laughed and chattered and danced in circles with one another.  Some of them waved to the adoring crowd, others ignored their admirers shyly.  A little girl with golden hair and bright blue eyes skittered away to clutch at what must be her mother's skirt. 

Rose watched her go.  She felt her whole body tense as she followed the line of the woman's skirt from where the little girl's hands clutched it to the familiar curve of her waist to where she leaned heavily upon a gilded throne, and finally to her face.

It was a curious thing, to look at what ought rightly to be another person entirely, and to see only herself.

Rose fell to her knees once more.

* * *

Perhaps it would be wisest to move the princess, take her to some faraway land where no one could trouble her while she slept, infuse into her dreams glimpses of happier things, ideas of a world worth waking up to.

It was a flimsy and frivolous idea at best, and Maleficent would not indulge such a flight of fancy.  Instead, she erected a forest of thorns around the castle, a forest of briars for Briar Rose, and she sat by Rose's side and she thought, for once in her life, of very little.

The foolish little fairies would return soon enough.  In all likelihood they'd bring their dashing prince with them, inflate him with muddy magic and false ideals in the blind hope that any of them was any match for Maleficent.

Rose had asked Maleficent not to harm the three good fairies she called her aunties.  She'd said nothing of the boy.

Rose fidgeted in her sleep, twisted up her face and tossed her head, seemed to fight against the confines of the curse.  Without thinking, Maleficent smoothed Rose's hair away from her brow, and felt herself flinch when the action seemed to calm the sleeping princess.

"Do you dream whilst you slumber, little princess?" Maleficent wondered quietly.  What would she find in a dreamscape made from magics so disparate as Maleficent's and Merryweathers?

Rose tossed her head again, tensed up her shoulders and balled her hands into fists where they lay upon her stomach.  Maleficent considered her a moment.  She moved her chair closer to Rose's bedside and reached out to stroke Rose's hair once more.

Rose's features softened.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LOOK AT ME updating in a timely manner!!! I've stopped pretending I know how long this story will end up being--the path it's taken has surprised me and I'm going to continue to let it do so. Thank you all so much for your kind words and your patience--I hope you will continue to enjoy!

Briar Rose had every intention of remaining upon the floor of the grand ballroom with her face hidden behind her hands until this dreadful vision faded out of existence.  Instead, she was startled into looking up when she felt a little thump of something approaching where she knelt.

She looked up from the base of a walking cane to the hand that clutched it to the face that was undeniably her own.

"Who are you?" Rose breathed.

"I think you already know that," said Rose's face, in Rose's voice, far closer and clearer than the one that ought to reside within her own lungs.

Rose scrubbed at her face, more out of habit than because she felt anything there, and made to stand on shaking legs.  "They're yours?" she asked.  _Ours.  Mine_.  "All of them?"

"Yes," said her mirror.  "That distresses you."

Rose could not quite meet her mirror's eyes.  This was who she would become.  This was what would rise from the ashes of that accident called Briar Rose.  This was the Princess Aurora.

"Well, Queen, now," said her mirror, as though Rose had spoken aloud.  "But Aurora will do."

Aurora.  The name that was meant to be her own felt so foreign to her.  Could she truly turn into a person for whom it was natural?  Rose focused her attention upon her own hands.  "What's it like?" she tried.  "I mean...bearing so many children."

"Bearing them?  Dreadful."  Aurora gesticulated gently with her cane, and tried to hide how heavily she must lean upon it thereafter.

"It is...distressing," said Rose.  "I can't imagine.  Having so many."  Even one.  Briar Rose remembered feeling not so long ago that she ought not to be treated like a child any longer.  The past few weeks had taught her otherwise.

Aurora did not respond right away, and Rose noticed that the noise of the whole room had dimmed around them.  The crowd was still cheering, the children were still playing, but nothing drew attention away from Aurora's silence.

"They give the people hope," she said at last.  "The promise of a future."

Rose looked upon her at last.  "Is that all?"

Aurora met her gaze with more steadiness, more certainty than Briar Rose had ever known.  "It's a great deal," she replied.  She returned her attention to the children.  "And they are lovely, sometimes.  I do love them.  I...try."

Perhaps it was the little twitch of her lower lip that did it.  Briar Rose began to weep at last, covered her mouth to stifle a sob that rang distant and muffled without any interference at all, felt herself double over and wondered whether in the waking world her body still slumbered peacefully.

"Oh, there, there, it's all right," said Aurora.  Kindly, Rose thought, but it was odd to try to judge the inflection of her own voice.  Aurora shifted her weight so that she could wrap an arm about Rose's shoulders, and the mere idea of it was absurd enough to calm Rose significantly.

"You know," Aurora continued, "I'm only a shadow.  Something that might come to pass.  And..." she hesitated.  "Well, when I look at you, I feel rather impossible."

Again Rose felt the urge to scrub her sleeve across her face, to wipe away tears that weren't real.  Only a shadow, just like everything in this place.  "I'm sorry," said Rose.  She could understand rather well what it was to be a shadow, something that might be rather than someone that was.

"It's all right," said Aurora.  "I would not wish my fate on another."  She let out a little huff of something like mirthless amusement.  "Even myself."

Rose looked up at the woman who had her face but who felt impossible, who was contented to bear an unfamiliar name and what looked to be a dozen children.  She thought of the grieving mother and the woman on fire, and she asked, "Is this all?  All there is to do for them?"

Aurora considered her a moment, with mannerisms that felt too weighty to belong to her, and then she turned away to look at her children.  'It seemed that way at the time," she said quietly.  "I was so miserable when I returned to the castle, and everything happened so fast.  One minute crying alone in a strange place, the next, waking..."

"You didn't dream?"

Aurora frowned and thought a moment.  "Maybe.  Vague things.  I had terrible nightmares before I fell under the sleeping curse.  I remember very little from that time."

"But you woke up."

"Well, yes, Phillip slew the evil fairy and he came and he—"

"What?"

Aurora returned her attention to Rose, perplexed.  "The evil fairy?  Maleficent?"

"She was...?" Rose tried, but the words would not come.  She felt as though the walls of the grand ballroom were closing in around her.  "When?  How?"

"While I slept," said Aurora.  Her frown deepened, but the expression was decidedly one of confusion.  "Phillip drove a sword through her heart."

Rose clutched her own chest and staggered backward, as though the same fate had befallen her just by hearing the words.  She closed her eyes against the lot of it and struggled to catch her breath.  "Oh no," she breathed.

Aurora steadied herself on her cane with both hands, and she turned her gaze downward as though to contemplate them where they rested.  "I felt badly for her, too, when I woke," she said.  She frowned again, down at her hands, and after a moment, shook her head firmly.  "But she wanted to hurt you," she continued, almost sharply.  "She wanted to hurt...everyone."  She looked up at Rose, a mirror image and yet somehow so infinitely different.  "That's why she had to die."

Rose took a step forward, hesitantly.  "Do you really believe that?"

Aurora's lower lip twitched again, a subtle tell, and she turned away.  The ballroom still surrounded them, but it had gone dim and blurry.  There wasn't much left to look at.  "Sometimes people believe things because they have to," said Aurora quietly.

"When I wake, she'll be gone?" Rose pressed forward.  "I can't...I can't warn her?  I can't—?"

Aurora turned back to her then, sharply.  "You know her?"

"I..." Rose began.

Words, frightful and unfamiliar, very nearly tumbled from her lips without her permission.  Words she knew, but barely understood.  Simple, but utterly intangible.

"She's my friend," said Briar Rose instead.

"If she's your friend," said Aurora, almost coldly, "then why are you here?"

"She..." Rose staggered backward.  "There was no other way," she tried, but did she really believe that?  "I don't want—  I didn't want— I can't!"

"I felt that way, too," said Aurora, but her voice rang hollow, and she, herself, seemed to be going blurry around the edges, little more than the shadowy shape of a queen clutching a cane.

"Please don't go!" Rose cried.  "Please, there has to be another way!"

"You said yourself there was no other way," said the shadowy figure.

"No!  No, wait!"

But the shadowy figure of Queen Aurora was gone.  So, too, were the grand ballroom, the finely-dressed crowd, and the children.  Briar Rose was left alone yet again, surrounded by nothingness.

So many questions she had to ask, and no one to give her an answer!  Everyone spoke in riddles and pretty evasions, be it in dreams or the waking world, and what good was that to Briar Rose?  If there was truly no other way, then why belabour the point?  What good was any of this, the summation of her existence, if the conclusion was foregone?

* * *

As had been the case for the better part of their lives, Flora had a plan, and Merryweather was skeptical.

Much as they purported to loathe one another, it occurred to Fauna, who usually stood just outside of their fiery disagreements, that their disparate inclinations were actually quite complementary.  Flora planned boldly, and Merryweather provided a counterpoint.

And Fauna?  Well, Fauna mediated.  Well, tried to.  Mostly, she just...cleaned up after the inevitable explosion.

Flora had, as it turned out, been saving two rather powerful magical artefacts for the day when she felt they might amass the resources to bring about Maleficent's downfall.  Where exactly she had acquired them, and for how long they had been in her possession, Flora would not disclose—no matter how vehemently Merryweather demanded the information.

 What mattered, Fauna insisted when Merryweather had begun to break dishes, was that the artefacts existed, and that the three of them together stood a chance of seeing that they were used effectively.  A Sword of Truth, when wielded correctly, could achieve feats of aim far beyond the realm of mere luck or skill.  A Shield of Virtue, with enough magic behind it, might just be a match for the strength of Maleficent's own formidable power.

Maleficent was not all-powerful.  She had her weaknesses, certainly, but each of them seemed to be countered by an equal strength.  She liked to stick to her plans whenever possible, but knowing exactly what Maleficent was up to and how far the scope of her machinations reached was near impossible, and she always seemed to have a contingency.  She, too, was prone to pride, and to reckless acts borne not of foolishness but of spite, and yet her power was so immense that these things could never be counted upon to hinder her.

Prince Phillip was a good swordsman, and a brave one.  Unfortunately, he was also prone to pride and foolhardiness.  He was young, and mortal, and he had led an easy life.  A steadier person, or even a rougher one, would have made for a far better match against Maleficent.

No one told him this, of course, and when Merryweather fervently whispered fragments of it to Fauna, Fauna reminded her that while Phillip might not be ideal, he was their best hope.  Better not to dishearten him.

With Merryweather sufficiently convinced, or perhaps merely subdued, the three fairies and Prince Phillip set off towards King Stefan's castle.  They rode through the streets of the village, the galloping footfalls of Phillip's horse unnervingly loud against the eerie silence of a magical slumber, but their journey was halted quite a distance from the castle proper.

Maleficent had encased the castle in a forest of thorns, towering briar bushes that wouldn't even need to be magical to deter intruders.  The horse whinnied unhappily and skittered backward.

"Oh, dear," Fauna uttered.

But Phillip calmed his horse and dismounted without so much as a moment's hesitation.  He drew the magical Sword and set off, sure-footed, towards the edge of Maleficent's forest.

The three fairy sisters exchanged a worried look, but followed him without protest.

As Phillip hacked and slashed at the towering briar bushes, and Flora and Merryweather did their best to help him amidst trying very hard not to argue, Fauna's attention was drawn to the window of the tower room where Rose slept.

She thought of all she knew about Maleficent, all any of them knew, which was admittedly very little.  She thought of the way Maleficent had so casually frozen the lot of them in place while she wandered away into the forest with Briar Rose.  Anything could have happened, and yet Rose had come back, unharmed, yet unwilling to speak of the incident at all.

"—and just exactly what are we going to do once we get up there?"

"Merryweather—"

"If we get up there!"

"Prince Phillip is perfectly capable of—"

"I'm sure he is, but after all this, he'll be exhausted, and then what?"

"Merryweather, you would be a far greater help if you would shut up!"

Fauna considered her sisters for a moment, then nodded firmly to herself and turned her gaze upwards towards the tower room once more.  She took a few steps backward to give herself a runing start and then flew high above the briar bushes, away from Prince Phillip, and from her arguing sisters.  She doubted her presence would be missed for some time.

Flora made plans.  Merryweather picked them apart.  And Fauna?

Fauna just tried to make sure someone was still standing after the smoke cleared.

As she neared the window to the tower room, Fauna felt a chill course through her, and she could not say for certain what had caused it.  The night air was unnaturally cold, to be certain, and their circumstances were dire enough to overwhelm the soul, but Fauna realized at last that it was a sound that had elicited the reaction.

A voice, low and resonant and decidedly fae, was humming a tune inside the tower room.  Fauna stopped short of the open window, recognized the tune as an old folk waltz without really meaning to.  She and her sisters had put words to the tune to sing Briar Rose to sleep when she was younger.  _I know you, I walked with you once upon a..._

Fauna lit upon the windowsill and peeked inside the room.  Briar Rose slept peacefully upon a small bed, with her hands folded upon her stomach.  Maleficent sat next to her, stroking her hair and humming.

Fauna felt a dreadful twinge in her heart at the strangeness of the scene before her.  To say that this was not what she had expected would be an understatement.

But Fauna did not come here with a plan, and so she had no grand machinations to revise.  She did not even know why she had come here, only that she felt she had to do something, that she felt without really understanding the feeling that there might be something she could do.

She climbed down from the windowsill, sheathed her wand and held up her hands in a show of peace.  "Maleficent?"

Maleficent didn't look up, didn't even stop hummig.

"I'm here alone," Fauna added, as Maleficent had not seen the empty hands she offered.

Maleficent ceased humming, but only to say, "Don't you think that I know?"  She did not turn her head, and she did not cease stroking Briar Rose's hair.  The action seemed so...genuine.  Fauna could not understand it.

"I...I just want to talk," said Fauna.

"So talk," Maleficent replied coolly.

And perhaps Fauna hadn't known what to expect, nor had she known what she intended, but this might well be the furthest thing from what she could ever have imagined.

Fauna wanted to talk, but she hadn't even the faintest idea of what to say.  She had seen that Maleficent was not nearly as devoid of reason as her sisters might pretend, but that did not mean she understood that reason.  She had seen that Maleficent could show mercy, and particularly that she had shown mercy to Briar Rose once already, but that did not mean she knew why.

"Isn't there another way?" Fauna tried.

Maleficent's hand froze, just for an instant, before she resumed stroking Rose's hair.  "To what end?"

Fauna stepped forward, hesitant, but encouraged.  "To repay your debt," she said, but doubted her guess immediately.  "That's what it is, isn't it?  A debt?"

Maleficent let out a little huff of something like amusement.  "You're cleverer than I gave you credit for, little fairy."

Many fairies operated that way—debts, prices for favours rendered, cruel punishments if their conditions were not met—and yet Fauna was stunned to hear Maleficent admit to it so easily.

Before she could fully wrap her head around this, though, Maleficent continued.  "But this has long since become far more than the initial debt.  Years of tireless searching, a kingdom torn asunder by careless rulers—"

"But surely your quarrel is with them, and with us?" Fauna pressed, perhaps a bit tremulously.  "Not with Rose," she amended, and she noted how Maleficent's hand stalled for another brief moment.

Finally, she turned to look at Fauna, and Fauna suddenly wished rather fervently that she hadn't.  Maleficent's eyes were dark and piercing, like that of a fearsome beast, and her dramatic features gave her the look of one perpetually in danger of snapping.

"What are you proposing, little fairy?" Maleficent wondered.  "Would you take her place?  What good would that do for me?  What good would that do for your precious human kingdom?"

"They would have her!" Fauna cried, quite suddenly, and the force of the words almost ached.

Maleficent stood, so abruptly that Fauna felt a jolt of terror course through her.  "And what good," Maleficent asked her, low and harsh, "would that do for her?"

Low and harsh, and genuine.

 _You care for her_ , Fauna very nearly said aloud, but for better or for worse, terror stayed her tongue.  She swallowed hard and struggled to fight back the tears she felt welling in her eyes, and even though it rendered her whole body ice-cold and panic-stricken to do it, Fauna did her level best to meet Maleficent's steely gaze when next she spoke.

"What good is this doing for her?" Fauna asked her gently, gesturing to where Rose lay in her cursed slumber.  "If you have your way, if she sleeps for a hundred years, what will happen to her then?"

Maleficent's expression didn't change very much, but some of the fire left her dark eyes, and the fact that she had let Fauna speak at all surely meant that she was at least thinking about what Fauna had said.  "A far kinder fate than what you expect of her," she replied at last.

"There are people who—" _need her,_ Fauna almost said, but as soon as she'd begun to speak, she knew she had made a grave misstep.

Maleficent's lip curled.  "People who what?" she spat.  "People who need her?"  She turned away and her robes swirled after her.  "What do I care for your people?  What does she owe to her kingdom?  Her life?  Her youth?"  Maleficent turned back sharply and added, somehow even more coldly than before, "Her body?"

Every fibre of Fauna's being wanted to cower under Maleficent's gaze.  She didn't know why she had come here or what she had expected to accomplish.  Flora made plans and Merryweather picked them apart, and Phillip had a magical Sword and Shield to aid him.  What could Fauna do?

But Fauna thought of Rose lying helpless in her cursed slumber, and she thought of what she had realized a moment prior, that Maleficent was doing this, at least in part, because she had come to care for Rose in some strange, twisted way.  And so she swallowed hard again and clenched her hands into fists at her sides.

"Does she owe those things to you, Maleficent?" she asked.

Maleficent's features softened quite suddenly, and the corner of her lips twitched into a derisive smirk.  Fauna found that she had much preferred a more obvious sort of fury.

"Brave little fairy," said Maleficent quietly.  She inhaled as though to speak, but before she could say more, there came a terrible crashing sound far below them, unbearably loud against the stillness of magical slumber. 

Maleficent turned her head as though to contemplate the sound.  She did not seem concerned.  "But it seems the time for talking grows short," she said.

"Maleficent, please," Fauna breathed, and she felt the tears she'd fought back returning in full force.

Maleficent returned her piercing gaze to Fauna.  There was a strange and unreadable set to her features, somehow equal parts mild and malicious.  "I've been asked to spare you, little fairy," she said coolly.  "Do not make me regret my promise."


End file.
